Chronologically Displaced
by The Heartless Wanderer
Summary: Several months after the events of the P-1 Grand Prix, the Investigation Team is transported three years into the past by forces unknown. Stranded in the year 2009, they have no recourse but to join forces with the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, but what effect will eight additional Persona-users have on the course of history? -P3/P4 Crossover, Post-P4 Arena-
1. I: A Time Lapse of Epic Proportions

**Full Summary:** Even the residents of the Velvet Room have no idea what caused it. One day, the heroes and heroines of a future time simply appeared in the place between consciousness and unconsciousness, even those who had never entered into any sort of "contract." When the entire Investigation Team finds itself crowded into a blue-velvet limousine, Yu Narukami's world is turned upside down in more ways than one — for Igor informs them that they have not only passed into the Velvet Room itself, but over three years into the past.

Now the Investigation Team is stranded in Iwatodai, circa 2009 A.D., the year during which Narukami's predecessor leads a different team of Persona-users against a different threat. Chronologically displaced, the teenage saviors of Inaba are left with only one course of action: join up with S.E.E.S., and try not to derail events so severely that they accidentally cause the end of the world. But how can eight additional Persona-users avoid changing the timeline when they don't even know what the timeline looked like in the first place?

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**Shin Megami Tensei: Persona  
****CHRONOLOGICALLY DISPLACED  
**by  
The Heartless Wanderer

**- V -**

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~I~  
****"A Time Lapse of Epic Proportions"**

* * *

Yu Narukami was… floating. That's what it felt like, anyway. It was an oddly familiar sensation, but his mind was a bit too hazy at that moment to identify it. It was like sleeping, only not. All he really knew was that it was impossible to be alarmed by it. It was a comfortable sort of feeling, natural; it did not feel "wrong" at all.

Then vision faded in and all he saw was blue — first an indistinct haze of it, but then the haze clarified into a ceiling, luxurious seats along the side of a long, room-like structure. The soft hum of a car's engine was the most prominent sound, and he realized the room was vibrating slightly. He was inside the car he could hear, then.

Wait. Then this was…

"Welcome back to the Velvet Room, my dear young man… I wish I could say I have some solid inkling as to why you all have come here on this particular occasion, but, alas, that is beyond even our scope of comprehension for the present…"

Yes, it _was_. He had come here of his own accord more times than he could count, and this time _he _was here as well, the long-nosed old man hunched over his table at the far side with his fingers steepled together and his wide, bloodshot eyes gazing intently at Narukami as they always had on those occasions where the gray-haired Persona-user had come here to take advantage of the Velvet Room's particular "services" — the fusion and creation of new Personas, which had proven to be a vital asset in solving the paranormal murder case he had been involved in last year.

But how had he come to be here? Had he been summoned in his dreams again? He remembered going to school — he couldn't remember falling asleep at any point…

Then he registered that he and Igor were not the only people in the room at the moment.

Margaret was conspicuously absent, which was a bit of a switch from the last time he'd been called here. On that occasion — during the course of that ludicrous "P-1 Grand Prix" — Igor had been absent, and the only one to greet him in the Room had been Margaret. He hadn't been able to use the Velvet Room's services at that time (it seemed the only thing he'd been called there for was a chance to get his head on straight), but nothing involving this place ever happened without purpose.

So why were Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Teddie, Kanji Tatsumi, Rise Kujikawa, and Naoto Shirogane _all _here in the Velvet Room with him?!

Teddie was curled up like a cat, presently in his human guise, on the floor at the feet of Yosuke and Chie, who were huddled rather closely together on the seat where Margaret usually sat. Chie's head was drooping onto Yosuke's shoulder, and for someone who insisted she hadn't discarded her womanhood, she was snoring in rather unladylike fashion. Yukiko was likewise resting on Chie's opposite side, looking rather adorable with a peaceful little smile on her face. Naoto sat asleep straight-backed with her arms crossed over her chest and her head bowed forward so that the brim of her hat covered her eyes. Kanji was slumped backward with his arms splayed out over the back of the chair, and Rise —

…Yu blushed. Rise was cuddling up against his own right side. _How _had he not noticed the feeling of _breasts_ against his torso? Well, it wasn't as disconcerting as it should have been. Perhaps one's libido did not operate at normal intensity in this place. His dominant thought, at any rate, was not _Ooh, squishy! _but rather, _That is just so Rise._ So his faculties weren't _completely _impaired…

"You are wondering why your companions have followed you into this Room, when they were in fact several train transfers away from your place of learning… correct?"

Igor's patient prompting brought Narukami's attention away from musings about breasts and hormones and back to the important matter of what the entire Investigation Team was doing in the Velvet Room to begin with. The team leader looked Igor directly in the old man's bloodshot eyes (the time when those eyes had finally ceased to make Narukami uncomfortable had long since come and gone). Igor seemed less at-ease than he normally was, which made Narukami a bit anxious as well.

"I can only offer my own speculation on that point," Igor mused in ponderous tones. "Whatever force removed you all from your own where and when seems to have brought you all into this domain and, perhaps due to your own connection to this place, you all drifted here like moths to a flame… or more accurately, you to this place, and they, in turn, to you."

Narukami blinked, but knew Igor well enough to resist the urge to press him with questions. Either the man knew what was going on and would be maddeningly vague about it, or he didn't and there was no point pestering him. Bottom line: questions would be pointless. Igor's role as an observer only allowed him a certain degree of leeway when it came to dispensing information.

"I am most troubled by this surprising turn of events," murmured Igor. "Not least because we have no inkling as to the cause of it. But it is fortunate that your trip through time has brought you here before you had a chance to awaken; it gives us a chance to clarify matters with you."

_Trip through time?!_ thought Yu Narukami with a visible start, but before he could break his resolution not to interrupt Igor's monologue, there was a groan and a stirring from next to the old man: Chie was waking up. She groaned, her eyes fluttered open, and then she was blinking blearily at the object across from her, which happened to be the Velvet Room's G.P.S. She looked left, and saw Narukami. "Yu, izzat… m'I dreamin'?" she slurred, then seemed to notice that she was leaning on someone. Shifting her head to look this person in the eye, she found her face intimately close to Yosuke's.

"…WHAT THE HELL, YOSUKE?!"

Her shriek, which Narukami had expected, didn't startle him, but he winced and actually felt a sympathetic pain in his own jaw when Chie's fist slammed into Yosuke's face. Yosuke, in turn, yelped a curse of his own and toppled onto the space directly next to Igor, who viewed this scene impassively over steepled fingers — seeing Yosuke's brain shut down in utter incomprehension as the headphone-wearing teen's eyes fixed themselves on Igor's long nose effectively drove all questions from Narukami's mind. Yukiko was thrown off of Chie by this sudden movement and directly into Naoto, who tumbled into Kanji like a domino block, who in turn managed not to budge. While that hilarity ensued, Chie launched a blind, reflexive _kick _that woke Teddie, connecting quite squarely with the blonde womanizer's cranium.

A soft "_Mmmmmmm…_" from Narukami's immediate right reminded him that he, too, was currently in an unintentionally intimate position with someone who might get the wrong idea in a completely different direction.

"Ooh, senpai!" moaned Rise sleepily as her eyes fluttered open. "Don't stop… please don't… do that thing again with the electricity and the toothbrush and the… huh?"

Rise blinked the sleep from her eyes, staring a blushing Yu Narukami in the face from approximately three inches away. Then she cleared her throat.

"I'm not… still dreaming right now, am I?" she asked in an uncharacteristically small voice. Yu could only shake his head in the negative and look desperately to Igor.

Kanji and Naoto, the latter quite alert and the other rubbing sand from his eyes, looked alternately from the cringing Yosuke to the writhing Teddie and to the entangled Narukami and Kujikawa. Teddie's yelps of "Ow, ow, ow, Chie-chan, what was that for?!" cut through everyone's thoughts like a hot knife through butter; even Yosuke tore his eyes away from that impossibly long nose and pushed himself back into a sitting position to have a look.

Rise gingerly disentangled herself from Narukami, her face quite red now, and simpered, "Ooh, Teddie, are you alright?"

Kanji ejaculated a loud "What the fuck? Where are we? Wait, _senpai_?! How'd you get here?!" as Teddie likewise pushed himself up into a sitting position from his place on the floor. Naoto adjuster her hat, the better to see, and then focused on the one person in the room who was a stranger to her.

"You… who are you, and where are you taking us?" the high school detective demanded in a low, serious voice. She didn't sound quite hostile just yet, but there was a threatening undercurrent to her tone all the same. This question brought the entire Investigation Team to attention, and everyone in the room focused simultaneously on Igor, who only now shifted his fingers around as the chaos of the team's awakening faded into tense silence.

"My name is Igor," the proprietor said graciously, "and I welcome you all to this Velvet Room. It is, as always, a delight to make the acquaintance of new guests… as to your second question, young lady, I am taking you nowhere. This place is merely a brief stop on your way to another place and time, and my understanding of matters is unusually limited."

Naoto bristled visibly at being so easily identified by this stranger as a female. Perhaps she was associating Igor with the malevolent entity who had engineered the incident during Golden Week… seeing potentially dangerous waters ahead, Yu decided to steer things down the right path and spoke up abruptly: "Don't worry, everyone. Igor's on our side."

A mix of incredulous exclamation and polite puzzlement sounded in a jumble from his friends; after a few moments during which they all attempted to speak over each other and Igor remained silent and unperturbed by their distress, Yosuke cleared his throat and the others looked to him to voice their concerns in a more orderly manner.

"Er… not to say we don't trust you, Partner, but what makes you so sure?"

Narukami shifted uneasily and glanced at Igor, who merely smiled indulgently and gestured for his guest to go on. Sighing, Narukami looked Yosuke in the eye and said, "I know because he's been on our side from the very beginning, since just before I arrived in Inaba last year."

Everyone was struck speechless by that. Finally, Yosuke spoke: "Whoa. You serious? Who — what — how — when — _what?!_"

"Ooh, I remember this place now!" Teddie suddenly exclaimed. "Yeah, this was where I met Sensei after I went missing that time! And Sensei told me that Nana-chan was still — oh! But, why did I only just remember? Bear-y strange, indeed…"

"You've been here before, Ted?" Chie asked, looking from Teddie to Igor with a dubious look on her face. "So you know who this guy is, then?"

"Nope!" said Teddie happily. "The only ones in the room then were Teddie and Sensei!"

Chie very nearly face-faulted at that. Narukami took the opportunity to cut in before more questions could muddle his explanation.

"This place is called the Velvet Room," he said quickly. "It's kind of like… how do I put it… a place between consciousness and unconsciousness, and Igor called me here while I was on the train to Inaba to warn me that I'd run into trouble when I got there. During the case, he helped me hone my Persona ability by fusing different Personas into more powerful ones and so forth."

"So why are we only finding this out now, senpai?" Kanji interjected with a slight edge to his voice. He apparently didn't like that Yu was hiding things from his friends. For the first time, Narukami felt a twinge of guilt over that, but honestly, he'd only refrained from saying anything because he'd doubted they'd believe him.

"…No one but me could see the door," Narukami said in a quiet voice, "and I didn't want to worry you all by making you think I'd gone insane or something, I guess. Sorry."

Though most of the team looked unsatisfied with that, Naoto nodded in understanding and said, "That makes sense. But that doesn't explain what we're all doing in this room now…" and she turned to look the long-nosed proprietor in the face again. Igor's eerie grin widened.

"As I said before the rest of you awoke, I do not yet know what removed you all from your original place and time," Igor said. "And make no mistake, you have all very much been removed from the time and place in which you belong. A little over three years into the past and to a city that all of you have been to before, if I am not mistaken."

The silence that followed this pronouncement was so silent it was actually quite loud.

Then, from Kanji: "…The fuck?!"

From Yosuke: "What the hell, man, don't play with us like that!"

From Chie: "…Ah… ha ha… that's a good one, Mister… Long-Nosed Person… but seriously, now…"

From Rise: "…Huh?"

From Yukiko: "What? The past? How — _what?!_"

From Teddie: "Wait, to a city even Teddie's been to? Ooh, does this mean Teddie gets to be king again?!"

Naoto had remained silent, brow crinkled in thought as she continued to look intently at Igor, but when Teddie spoke up, she shifted in surprise. "Tatsumi Port Island?" Naoto said. "But three years ago — the Apathy Syndrome epidemic that Kirijo-san told me about!"

The Investigation Team turned as one toward Naoto, perplexed by her sudden comprehension of the situation — even more so when Igor replied, "Just so…"

Naoto looked from one friend to the next and said seriously, "You remember the Shadow Operatives, don't you?"

"Dude, how could we possibly _forget_?" Yosuke scoffed. "So this Apathy Syndrome thing has to do with them, right?"

"Kirijo-san was brief in her explanation, but Apathy Syndrome was a growing problem in the Iwatodai area in 2009, and then around February of the next year it simply… stopped," Naoto said. "According to Kirijo-san, Shadows were the cause of the epidemic. Her team of Persona-users was initially formed specifically to put an end to that very problem. It was only later that they became an organization with government support; at the time, they were only backed by the Kirijo Group itself, and operated under the guise of school club."

"Huh," Chie said. "They sound kinda like us, don't they…"

"Yeah," agreed Yukiko.

"Our previous guest was an important part of that same team," Igor put in unexpectedly. Narukami looked to Igor in surprise; it was unlike him to volunteer information such as this. "But as to why you have all been placed in that where and when, I can only guess. I suspect it was no accident, however…"

Igor sighed softly and shifted his steepled fingers one last time.

"Time marches on in the real world; I should keep you no longer. I only wished to warn you of the circumstances so that whatever choices you may make, they at least be _informed _choices. Keep in mind, however, that those choice are your own and no one else's. Abide by our contract as always, young man," added the proprietor, speaking directly to Narukami now, "and you may come here of your own accord whenever you have need. We will aide you accordingly."

The Investigation Team watched the exchange in mild puzzlement as Narukami nodded in solemn understanding, worry etched on his face.

"I wish you all the best of fortune," Igor said. "Until we meet again… farewell."

And the Investigation Team, to a man, felt their consciousness flutter away…

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry I've been neglecting to update my other two stories; between schoolwork and an untimely hard drive failure, I haven't had as much time to indulge my muse as I'd like. I should have time over the next couple of weeks to update both of the other stories; I decided to start this one first to give myself a little "exercise," if you catch my meaning.

As the mentions of the P-1 Grand Prix and Shadow Operatives suggest, this story takes place after the events of _Persona 4 Arena_. It also assumes the protagonist of _Persona 3 _was male, so I apologize to all Minako and/or Theodore fans out there for their total absence from this story.


	2. II: Shadows in the Moonlight

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~II~  
****"Shadows in the Moonlight"**

* * *

The next thing that Yu Narukami became cognizant of was the cold, rough feeling of pavement against his left cheek. Groaning, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, realizing before remembering anything that he must be unconscious on the ground. But that couldn't be right. The last thing he remembered was leaving class at lunch time…

No, that wasn't quite right. True, that was his last true "conscious" memory, but there was something else, something with a certain dreamlike quality yet just a little too "real" to be a dream. Yes, that was right: he had awoken in the Velvet Room. Igor had been there, but so had —

Narukami leapt to his feet so quickly that he felt a wave of dizziness and had to bend over, settling his hands on his kneecaps while he let the blood flow back into his head and the whiteness fade from his vision. Then, when he could see and stand properly again, he looked around at his surroundings. Yes, all of them were here, but how? He had been attending school in the city; he and the Investigation Team had kept in closer contact than they had before the incident with Labrys, but they were still miles and miles apart. How had whatever brought _him _here also swept his friends into the situation, when they were all attending a completely different school in a completely different town?

Yu Narukami took in his surroundings properly for the first time. They were obviously in a city — possibly Tatsumi Port Island, as had been suggested in the Velvet Room, but all Narukami could tell at present was that everything was unusually _green _and _hazy _and _uncomfortable_ right now. The last feeling was familiar, but Narukami couldn't quite place that familiarity and was too concerned with his friends' safety at the moment to dwell on it.

Yosuke was slumped against the side of a wall nearby, the rest of the Investigation Team huddled unconscious around the two of them; they seemed to be in a side alley at the moment. There was an odd, coffin-like object toward the back, away from the street, where it lay flat on the ground atop what appeared to be a spread of crumpled newspaper with a jumble of beer-cans piled behind it. Narukami made his way to Yosuke, but his eyes lingered on the strange coffin as he recalled what Naoto had said about the Apathy Syndrome epidemic of 2009 being connected to Shadows.

…Could what Igor had told them possibly be true? Had they really been transported three years into the past…? Narukami knelt down next to Yosuke and shook him by the shoulder, calling his name softly, for some reason reluctant to raise his voice. Yosuke moaned in his sleep and then jerked awake with a start.

"Wha —? Partner?!" he exclaimed, blinking owlishly at Narukami. "What're you doing in Inaba? For that matter…" Yosuke squinted around at the green-lit alleyway and shivered slightly. "Is this even Inaba? This feels like the TV World…"

"It's not the TV World," Narukami said in a low voice. "Yosuke, what's the last thing you remember? Do you remember… a blue room?"

"Blue room?" Yosuke muttered, bewildered. "I remember I was having lunch with the others on the school roof, and then — yeah!" Yosuke suddenly said, and pushed himself up, looking around wildly. "The Velvet Room, that freak with the long-ass nose, I remember! But the things he said were so — holy shit, _guys_!"

Yosuke scrambled toward Teddie, who was nearest, while Narukami took that as his cue to check on the girls. Chie and Yukiko were sprawled on the ground (Narukami would have found the view of Yukiko's underthings a thrilling sort of uncomfortable if the situation had been less dire), Kanji was actually slumbering atop the lid of a nearby dumpster, and somehow Naoto was once again sitting back against the side of said dumpster with her arms folded ponderously over her chest, as though she had intentionally fallen asleep in that position. One by one they were shaken from sleep by Narukami and Yosuke, and slowly got to their feet, looking around with bemused, worried expressions as they insisted that yes, they were fine, don't worry.

"…Do the rest of you remember that peculiar dream, as well?" Naoto finally asked. "The Velvet Room…"

"Uh-huh," said Yosuke and Chie at once, looking at each other in surprise as they said it. A moment later Yukiko and Rise voiced the affirmative as well, and Kanji scratched at the back of his head.

"Well, yeah," grumbled the punkish boy. "Weird as hell, though. I mean, that stuff about being sent back in time? I dunno if I can believe that, but…"

"Teddie remembers it, too!" chirped the blond boy, raising his hand with a sunny smile on his face as though this were a proud accomplishment.

"Then we did all appear in the Velvet Room," Narukami concluded. "And now we're here. And as Igor has not once steered me wrong, I can only conclude he was telling the truth… as unbelievable as it may sound…"

"Hm…" Naoto hummed thoughtfully, looking up and down the alleyway. "If this is indeed the Port Island of three years ago, we are likely standing right in the middle of whatever caused the Apathy Syndrome outbreak. It feels…"

"Like the TV World," Yosuke finished for Naoto as the detective trailed off. "Yeah. But — ew, is that blood on the wall?"

Yosuke was looking up at something behind and above Narukami. When the rest of the Investigation Team looked up and gasped, their leader frowned and turned to see what Yosuke was pointing out — and very nearly gasped himself. There was a shining, oozing smear of blood on the alley wall some ways up, barely visible in the eerie green night, but there was no mistake. But whose blood, and how had it gotten there?

"What the hell, man, that is just wrong," Kanji said, incredulous. "How did that much blood even get up there? I don't see a body."

Yukiko and Rise said nothing, but both looked a little bit sick. Chie and Yosuke simply looked disturbed. Teddie looked from one person to the next with a puzzled expression, as if he didn't know exactly why the sight was such a big deal in the first place.

"…We should investigate the area to see if there are any clues about this bizarre phenomenon," said Naoto evenly. "With Shadows involved, there's no telling what is real and what is a, for want of a better description, 'figment' of the world around us."

"Wait, so you're saying you think the blood might be something like all those different places that popped up in the TV World when Adachi or Namatame threw someone in?" Chie asked with dawning comprehension.

"Quite so," Naoto affirmed. "If Shadows are involved, it merits consideration. We don't even know if this is in fact the 'real world' yet, although if it involves the Kirijo Group's past dealings, I suspect it is… to an extent."

"In any case, the first step is to keep calm and see if we can summon our Personas," Narukami said in his best take-charge tone, and at once the Investigation Team seemed more calm and alert, all looking to him and giving their own expressions of agreement. Rise folded her hands as if in prayer, and began to concentrate. Yu himself held his hand out before him, palm-up, and tried to will his Persona card to materialize.

Several moments of this passed where everyone in the group followed suit and for some reason none of them felt like giving up. Eventually Rise said in a strained voice, "It's… weird. I can definitely feel Kouzeon, but it's… just so hard to… to…!"

She let out a strained, frustrated yell and collapsed onto her knees, clutching her head and gritting her teeth. In their concern, the rest of the team stopped trying to summon and gathered around her.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Yukiko said as she helped Rise stand up. "It's like Sumi-Omikane is there, but I can't quite reach her…"

There was a general air of discontent amongst the Investigation Team, as they all muttered their frustrations at not being able to call their Personas. It wasn't like in the real world, Narukami noted; outside of the TV World, they had never been able to so much as feel their Personas' presence before, but when they _had _entered the TV World, calling a Persona had been no more or less an effort of will than moving one's own arm. Their Personas had felt like extensions of themselves, like magical phantom limbs or something. Now they were stuck in some kind of uncomfortable in-between place where it felt like they should have been able to call out their Personas but couldn't.

"…Perhaps it merely requires more focus to achieve an unaided summoning in this place than before," Naoto suggested at length. "Recall: the Shadow Operatives we encountered previously carried gun-like objects with which they appeared to shoot themselves in the head in order to summon their Personas. When I was explaining the specifics of the TV World to Kirijo-san, she seemed quite interested in the fact that we were able to summon ours with no outside aid within it, and postulated that there was something about the TV World that expedited the summoning process."

"So you're saying we need one of those weird guns?" Chie said incredulously. "B-but what kind of crazy person puts a gun to their head and pulls the trigger, even if it's — not, er, real?" She put on an embarrassed face as if the question sounded stupid when voiced aloud, but Naoto answered immediately.

"That may be exactly the point, Chie-san," she said. "The mere act of using one of those devices requires one to break a fundamental psychological restraint, and the device itself takes care of the rest. The two elements together compensate for the difficulty in summoning a Persona, and allow one to call the power forth where it wouldn't be naturally possible, or would be more difficult to achieve by force of will alone. This may explain why Yamagishi-san was capable of using her sensory skills from outside the TV that time."

"When Labby-chan was being controlled by that _bad guy!_" Teddie exclaimed, ending on an almost comical growl of indignation. "_I get it_! But… what do we do if we can't summon our Personas?"

"…I dunno," said Naoto hopelessly, glancing from one comrade to the next, each of whom had a hopeless or perplexed expression on their faces. Narukami took that as his cue to be the leader again.

"In any case, we have no weapons or armor on hand and without direct access to our Personas, I don't think we should engage any Shadows in direct combat if we come across them. If we're really in the Port Island area of three years ago like Igor said, our best course of action is probably to link up with Kirijo-san's group."

Naoto turned to look at Narukami, her brow creased with strain. "And what then? I doubt they would believe us if we just explained our situation."

Narukami nodded his agreement with that reservation. "Yeah… but they're the only ones we know of who possess the means to draw out Personas outside the TV World, and it's not as if we can all just go back to where we came from. I'm sure you must've realized it by now, Naoto. If the 'us' of three years from now has gone back in time, then the 'us' of _right now_ must be…"

"…at our homes or with our families, three years younger, living the lives we lived three years ago," the detective sighed. "In other words, our identities are quite 'taken.'"

Narukami nodded seriously, but the outcry of alarm from the rest of the group (minus Teddie, who had no documented identity to speak of in the first place) was quite loud. Chie, Yosuke, and Yukiko all looked to each other as if quite lost, while Kanji seemed both furious at the idea and confused as to how that actually even worked.

"D-d-does that mean my parents won't even — I mean — but they're my —" stammered Chie, looking more helpless than Yu had seen her since Yukiko's disappearance the previous year.

"So we can't just go back to Inaba, then," mumbled Yukiko.

"Dude, Yu and I aren't even anywhere _near_ Inaba yet!" Yosuke exclaimed.

"…Wait, so you're sayin'… there's, like, the me in this alley right now, and somewhere else there's the little snot-nosed me sleeping up in _my _room and livin' in _my _house?" demanded Kanji.

"It's actually _his _house right now, Kanji-kun…" Yukiko said gloomily, with a bleak look around the green-lit alleyway. "Yu-kun, what… what are we going to _do_? This isn't like the TV World, where we can just… go back home at the end of the day. We need shelter, some way to get food, we — we can't just not go to school, and if the police get wind of us —"

"It could cause all sorts of problems," groaned Yosuke. "What the hell are we gonna —"

"Calm down," Narukami said firmly, and as if it were a built in reflex after so many repetitions, the Investigation Team members all forced their distress back and looked attentively at their leader. "For now, we look around. If this _is_ the Port Island of 2009, it shouldn't be difficult to locate Kirijo-san's group, since they'll be attending a local school at this point —"

"If I may, senpai," Naoto interjected. "I think we can narrow the school down to a specific one: Gekkoukan High School, which we visited on our school trip last year... that is, on our school trip in 2011. The school is owned and operated by the Kirijo Group, so it not only makes sense that Mitsuru Kirijo-san would attend there, it also explains how the anti-Shadow team was so easily kept under wraps, since the Kirijo Group backed the club's efforts in the first place."

Narukami nodded. "It's the logical conclusion," he agreed. "First, we look around and see what we can discover about this disturbance. Then, we find out when during the year it actually is. After that, we attempt to get in contact with Kirijo-san's team of Persona-users, but not before we decide exactly what we're going to tell them."

Naoto nodded her assent, and the others voiced their agreement not long after.

"Good," said their leader, and to his credit, he was doing a fantastic job of keeping his own anxiety hidden. Drama club had practical uses after all, it seemed. He'd have to thank Yumi for the extra lessons, if they ever made it back to their own time. "Now, since none of us has access to a Persona at the moment, we should stay together. It'll make the search for information harder, but it's too much of a risk to split up when we have no sure means of defending ourselves from Shadows."

"Got it, Partner."

"Yes, sir!"

"Okay, Yu-kun."

"Aye aye, senpai!"

"Good call, senpai!"

"Understood, senpai."

"Gotcha, Sensei!"

Looking from one member of the Investigation Team to the next, and projecting as much reassurance and confidence into his gaze as he could manage, Yu Narukami strode out of the alleyway and onto the open street. The Investigation Team followed suit.

Once the constrained alley was no longer limiting their vision, the environment suddenly became all the more bizarre for it: the first thing they saw, above their heads, was an eerily gigantic, and bright yellow, waning half-moon. No wind blew down the open street; the air was quite stagnant on top of possessing the usual sticky, oppressive feeling that the TV World did. When the team managed to draw their eyes away from the moon, they found an even more bizarre sight closer to home: the street and sidewalks were lined with coffins, which stood like standing-stones where pedestrians should have been. More puddles and smears of oozing blood could be seen splashed across the ground or walls at irregular intervals. With the possible exception of the twisted, ruined version of Inaba that had formed inside the TV World when Tohru Adachi had fled there, it was creepier by far than anywhere the Investigation Team had ever been.

Scanning the eerie green-ness with her eyes and wishing she could use her Persona to get a clearer answer, Rise said softly, "I don't see any Shadows, but…" She looked at the yellow moon, betraying a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. "I have a really bad feeling about whatever this is, senpai."

"Rawr! Teddie's nose isn't picking up anything!" Teddie said confidently. "I don't sense _any _Shadows anywhere nearby, Sensei. It's just us and coffins here."

The team looked at Teddie in surprise and awe. "Oh, that's right!" Chie said, slapping her forehead. "I guess it didn't occur to me 'cause you're not wearing you're… um… fur today. Even before you got your Persona, you could sense where people and Shadows were. You think you can sense anything further away from us?"

"I'll try," Teddie said confidently. "There's no fog or anything like that here, so there shouldn't be anything to stuff up my nose. I think I can get a clearer picture than I could before!"

"Awesome, Ted! Man, you are a lifesaver!" Yosuke said. The rest of the team seemed to agree with the sentiment, and crowded a bit closer to Teddie as if being closer to him somehow meant safety. Teddie began to take great whiffs of the air around them, and then yelped, causing the rest of the team to jump back in alarm.

"Yeee-_owsers_, that's a lot of Shadows!" he said in a worried voice. Before anyone could voice a response, Narukami strode up to Teddie and said, "Where, and how many?"

Teddie turned toward one of the buildings and raised one arm to point. "A long ways off in that direction! I think there's some kind of tower over there, and it is _full _of Shadows! I don't sense anything outside of it but a few scattered people, though, and no one anywhere near us."

"A few scattered people?" Naoto cut in, picking up on what she evidently deemed an important detail. "What can you tell us about them?"

"Not much of anything, just that they're human and they're alone — no," Teddie corrected himself suddenly, looking like he was concentrating harder. "There's two small groups that are together. There's one bunch of three a long ways off, but I can't tell what they're doing, they're just so bear-y far away…" He trailed off with a forlorn shake of his head. "And there are a couple of others in a building a ways off in that direction. For some reason it's a bit easier for me to smell those two groups than any of the others."

"Easier how?" Naoto pressed.

"I dunno, it's like they smell stronger than the others or something," Teddie said with a shrug.

Naoto looked intently at Narukami and said, "One or both of those groups might be connected to Kirijo-san's team of Persona-users."

Narukami, surprised by this reasoning, turned it over in his head and nodded. "It's possible. But I'd rather not chance approaching them until we get our story straight. Teddie, what can you tell us about that 'tower' you sensed?"

"…It's bear-y tall, and _bear-y_ scary," Teddie said in a quivering voice. "I've never smelled so many Shadows in one place before, even when the fog used to lift in my own world!"

Rise looked at Teddie and said, "Do you think that place might be like the 'dungeons' that appeared in the TV World?"

"…I don't know," Teddie said sadly. "Maybe. I don't know anything about this green-city place. It feels kind of like my world, but it also feels really different. Like it doesn't belong here."

"Should we check out that tower…?" Yosuke suggested uncertainly, which prompted Chie to whirl on him with an angry, frightened look on her face.

"Are you crazy, Yosuke?! We can't summon our Personas right now, we have no chance against that many Shadows!" she snapped.

"I don't mean go inside!" Yosuke said defensively. "I mean just… take a look, see what there is to see, and high tail it if something goes wrong!"

Chie still looked uncertain, but Kanji chimed in first: "Sounds good to me. Might have somethin' to do with why the city's so screwed up right now."

Naoto nodded. "I concur. If we keep our distance from any Shadows, we should at least be able to get close enough to confirm its location and how to get inside it. Then, we leave for the time being, until we have access to our Personas again."

"Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking!" Yosuke said with a relieved grin. Apparently, the fact that the team's detective agreed with him inspired a bit more confidence in his own idea.

"I think that's a good plan!" Rise put in. "What do you think, Yu-senpai?"

"I think it's a good plan, too," Narukami said decisively. "Anyone disagree?"

Chie and Yukiko glanced at each other uncertainly. "W-Well, if we're only looking from the outside…" mumbled Yukiko.

"Y-Yeah, but…" Chie muttered. "Gosh, I just feel so _naked_ going into this kind of situation without my Persona…"

"No kidding," Kanji said. "But we can't let that scare us off, dudes. We need to find out just what the hell's going on, and that _tower_ is our only decent lead, right? So what're we standin' around here for?!"

"Then we're in agreement," Naoto declared. "We approach the exterior of the tower that Teddie's detected and see what we can confirm without actually entering it."

The team voiced their definitive agreement (Chie and Yukiko with confidence this time), and then Narukami looked to the blonde-haired pseudo-Shadow. "Alright, Ted. Lead the way."

"Roger!" Teddie chirped, and he set off at a bouncy pace down the street, the rest of the Investigation Team trailing behind him.

**- V -**

Meanwhile, at a certain room in a certain dormitory, a certain red-haired teenage woman opened her eyes in puzzlement and alarm, stood up, and strode over to the large computer console that dominated the luxurious top-floor lounge she had been meditating in. The hardware set on the coffee table in front of her seat had just given her a very definitive reading, and she was quite alarmed by the implications of what it had detected. The room was bathed in the hazy green of the Dark Hour, and one very conspicuous smear of blood adorned the ceiling toward the back of the room, but the computer console and portable hardware were both somehow quite operable regardless.

She stopped in front of the command console and pressed a certain button. "Akihiko, can you hear me? It's Mitsuru."

A few moments passed, and then the radio on the console crackled to life. _"What is it, Mitsuru? Did something happen?"_

"I'm detecting something moving outside of Tartarus…" the woman, Mitsuru, said in a firm but concerned voice.

_"One of _them_?"_ Akihiko responded quickly, almost excitedly.

"It's a relatively small reading, but it was definitely a Shadow outside of Tartarus," said Mitsuru seriously. "The reading is out-of-range now, but I think it was heading towards the tower."

_"You want me to head it off?"_ Akihiko asked eagerly over the radio.

"I want you to catch up to it if you can and _observe it from a distance_," Mitsuru said in an almost chilly tone of voice, and despite the lack of immediate response, anyone who happened to be listening in might have imagined they could hear Akihiko physically deflate on the other end. "I'll wake Takeba and we'll link up with you outside of Tartarus. Don't make a move until we do, got it? I can't be sure how powerful this Shadow actually is; I've never sensed one outside of Tartarus before."

_"…Right, that makes sense,"_ Akihiko said at last, seeming to have gotten past his disappointment long enough to cotton on to the logic of the order. "It could be something really massive and we have no way of knowing until we see it up close, huh?"

"Or at least until I can get close enough for a clearer reading," Mitsuru said. "In any case, I can't detect it anymore from the dormitory, so I need you to move quickly and see if you can locate it before we get there. I'll be in contact once Takeba and I are on the move, got it?"

_"Roger that, Mitsuru,"_ Akihiko said. _"I'm already on the way to Tartarus. Let me know if anything changes."_

"I will. Good luck, Akihiko."

_"You too, Mitsuru."_

* * *

**Author's Note:** The Personas mentioned by Rise and Yukiko, "Kouzeon" and "Sumi-Omikane," are the third-tier ultimate Personas those characters can acquire in _Persona 4 Golden_. This story assumes all additional content in that release to be canonical.


	3. Recollection: Like a Story Being Written

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~The First Recollection~  
"Like a Story Being Written"**

* * *

_In the year 2012 — late July, to be precise — a reunion of sorts would transpire on the island of Yakushima. Eight friends (six humans and a robot that looked like one, plus one dog) would by happy coincidence find that several days of their summer off-time happen to overlap for the first time since the year 2009, when most of them had enjoyed a brief summer vacation in this very place. In many ways that had been a simpler, happier time; though Ken Amada and Koromaru had not been present on that occasion, their old team of Persona-users had been ready for action and certain of their goal… and _he _had been with them, of course. That occasion was memorable for one member of the former S.E.E.S. for another very specific reason, though…_

_That had been the day when she had met them — her first friends, a group of people who had eventually become as precious to her as life itself. The Seventh Generation Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon "Aigis" hadn't been in any condition to understand that at the time, of course; she had only known that her highest priority was to be near _him. _But that was the start of it, and it was a memory she would treasure (with a hindsight-induced pinch of embarrassment, mind you) for the rest of her life, however long or short that might be._

_Yakushima was an important place for their guest as well, albeit for a more uncomfortable reason. This island had been where Aigis's Fifth-Generation sister unit was developed, and where she was forced to fight against others of her kind as the Kirijo Group's scientists worked to determine which model would be the baseline for their line of anti-Shadow android weapons. Labrys had been understandably uneasy about returning to this place, but her desire to meet the rest of Aigis's friends had overruled her unpleasant memories with startling ease. Indeed, Labrys was in high spirits, for after this vacation she intended to pay a visit to Inaba and meet up with her own first friends. Between that and the warm welcome she had received from Yukari, Junpei, Ken, and Koromaru (for those four had not been involved in the Golden Week incident), it seemed the smile would never deign to leave her face._

_It was the second night of their three-day stay; the following afternoon, Mitsuru would have to return to her duties and Aigis would have to follow. The others all had their own plans for the remaining summer weeks, so Aigis understood it, whether it be assisting the ongoing investigation into the culprit behind the theft of Labrys or attending to their own lives elsewhere. Even Koromaru had plans: apparently he'd met a lady dog back in Iwatodai and was quite anxious to get back to her. _Ah, the allure of romance_, thinks Aigis. _I comprehend. Although, I should probably avoid thinking too deeply about that with regards to canines.

_Those among the friends who can ingest food — all except Aigis and Labrys, that is — are gathered around the table and enjoying the bountiful menu that Mitsuru arranged for… despite Fuuka's insistence that she could prepare a fantastic feast for them all, which was soundly vetoed on the diplomatic grounds that it would be a better use of vacation time to kick back and relax while someone who was _not _on vacation slaved over a hot stove in their stead._

_Aigis is 99.9% sure that this was not the true reason, but rather an excuse. The general consensus amongst S.E.E.S. was that Fuuka Yamagishi simply could not cook an edible meal if the lives of every one of her friends, six thousand orphaned kittens, and herself all depended on the edibility of the meal. It would be impolitic to say so to her face, however, which might be why Akihiko had slapped his hand over Aigis's mouth when she had attempted to clarify matters for Fuuka…_

_Fuuka's lack of culinary finesse aside, dinner is now coming to a close. Koromaru noisily licks his dish clean on the floor behind Ken and Junpei, the latter of whom keeps sneaking Koromaru extra morsels from the table whenever Mitsuru is looking the other way. Yukari, who like many human females is attempting to be conscious of weight variance, fails once again to resist the urge to take one more food item, whereas Fuuka had just given it up as impossible and ate steadily throughout the meal anyway. Mitsuru is the picture of dining etiquette as always. Akihiko had been reprimanded by Mitsuru for bringing a protein shake to the table but had mixed one in with his drink when she'd turned her attention elsewhere, which for some reason had caused Junpei to cough into his own glass and then to repress a strong fit of laughter. Aigis did not quite comprehend. Data suggested that protein was a healthy supplement for one with Akihiko's pattern of physical fitness. But the scene had made Labrys smile wider, so Aigis had refrained from questioning it aloud._

_There had been a bit of a gap between Aigis and Labrys for a while, but as they worked together they'd grown quite close. In truth, it reminded Aigis of the brief time she had spent with Metis while fighting Shadows in the Abyss of Time, except that Metis and Labrys had vastly different personalities. Aigis's only regret was that the Kansai-speaking girl whose personality had been a template in the development of the fifth-generation series had evidently passed away in the intervening decade between Labrys's resolution to meet her and her eventual awakening inside the TV World. This had left Labrys quite depressed for a long while, and Aigis had spent the entire time feeling especially cognizant of how bad at comforting people she was. But perhaps by being there, she had in some small way provided support? She had read that such could be helpful. Even now Aigis had trouble understanding the finer points of these things._

_A loud belch from Junpei, followed by an "Ow!" as Yukari kicks him under the table, breaks Aigis's train of thought. "C'mon, Yuka-tan, what wazzat for?!" exclaimed Junpei, turning a half-hurt, half-amused look on the girl across the table from him._

"_For being a pig," snapped Yukari, but with no real heat. "Anyway, Mitsuru-senpai? I've been wanting to ask you something since you told us all about what happened during Golden Week."_

_Mitsuru sets her eating implements down and looks to Yukari with a questioning expression. "What is it, Takeba?"_

"_I'm just curious," says Yukari. "You said there were a bunch of high school kids in Inaba who could all use Personas, but you never told us anything about them. I was thinking… well, I'd like to hear more about them, is all."_

"_Hell yeah, me too!" Junpei says. "Something tells me there's something awesome about those guys. I mean, Persona-users are unusual enough, but a whole team of 'em all in one town, working together and stuff? Heh. Takes you back, doesn't it?"_

"_Yeah, it did…" Akihiko puts in. "They were an interesting bunch, to say the least."_

"_Now that you mention it, I'd like to hear more about them, too," Ken says. Behind him, Koromaru sits up with sudden attention and short bark. Labrys giggles._

"_Koro-kun says he wants ta hear about 'em, too," she translates before Aigis can. "And I don't mind talkin' about 'em, myself. Yu an' them are cool people, I can't wait to see 'em again."_

_Mitsuru smiles, closing her eyes for a moment in that contained-yet-amused way she does, and then she says, "Narukami and his friends, hm… I wish I knew more about them, myself. There wasn't time to properly discuss matters with them while we were in Inaba, though — the follow-up was urgent, so all we had time for was a quick good-bye."_

_Fuuka puts on thoughtful expression. "Now that I think about it, we all had to leave Junes so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to get a good look at them… wasn't one of them that pop idol, Risette? I… kind of wish I'd gotten her autograph," she says, blushing slightly. "Her last album really stuck with me, especially 'Pursuing My True Self.'"_

"_Yes. I would have enjoyed speaking with them as well," Aigis says. Her tone slips from neutral to slight melancholy as she adds: "Especially Narukami-san. He… reminds me a lot of Minato-san, somehow."_

_Yukari gives Aigis a weird look, which only becomes more bewildered when Mitsuru says, "Actually, now that I think about it, he had the same 'air' about him that Arisato did… but maybe I was just seeing Arisato in the way the others all seemed to look up to and trust Narukami. It was plain to see that he's the friend and leader to them that Arisato was to us."_

_Yukari frowns, but then Akihiko grunts, "Didn't Aigis say he also had the same power? You know, that he could use multiple Personas like Minato did?"_

"_Whoa…" Junpei says, half in awe and half in disbelief. "Seriously? Dude, that is just plain spooky."_

_Yukari, now looking quite dazed, says: "C'mon, guys, that's not funny. I mean… Minato-kun… Minato-kun was amazing. One-of-a-kind. You can't just say stuff like — like this guy you just met was exactly like him. That's —"_

"_I did not mean to imply that!" Aigis exclaims, shifting uncomfortably. "Only that he reminded me of him. That I could see some of Minato-san's goodness in him. I would never imply that anyone could replace _him_, Yukari-san, you know that."_

_Labrys looks baffled, eyes flitting from an excited Junpei to a nostalgic Mitsuru to a cautious-looking Ken and finally to Yukari, who looks like she might be a stone's throw from a teardrop. "Uh…" Labrys says uncomfortably. "I mean, I'm sorry if it's none o' my business, but who's this 'Minato' guy you're talkin' 'bout?"_

_Aigis looks at Labrys in surprise, as do the others; for a moment it seems like they may have forgotten she was there. "Oh… uh…" Junpei says. "Minato was… he was… uh… he was this really awesome, I mean, like, badass! …Er…"_

"_Minato-san was a very good friend to us all," Aigis cuts in, "and a fine leader. He gave his life to save us and everyone in the world from certain death. I will… tell you the story another time, sister. Is that alright with you?"_

"_Sure… yeah," Labrys says, shifting under the collective gaze of the former S.E.E.S. members. She seems to think she shouldn't have spoken up, but before anything further can be said on the matter, Akihiko gasps, clutching at his head._

"_What the…?" he says, eyes shut tight. "…Narukami? Chie? What the hell?!"_

_Labrys's wide, surprised eyes zip directly to Akihiko, who now looks the very picture of confused — undecided, even. Aigis blinks, uncomprehending. "Akihiko-san?" she asks._

"_Akihiko, what's wrong? What's this about Naruka—" but Mitsuru stops short, hand snapping to her own forehead and her eyes widening in something that Aigis can't quite identify… is it comprehension, or bewilderment? It looks almost like it could be both at once._

_Suddenly Yukari jumps to her feet, looking frightened and angry. "W-what is this?!" she yelled. "These — these memories —"_

"_Huh? What, what?!" demands Junpei, looking back and forth between Mitsuru and Yukari._

"_What's wrong?" Ken asks in worry. Koromaru barks swiftly behind him, padding around the table to where Yukari and Akihiko sit and barking some more._

"_I — this is…" Akihiko said. "But we never met them back then, I know we didn't…"_

"_We definitely didn't!" Mitsuru snaps sharply. "But this — this is like the memories just now wrote themselves into what we remember — what's going on?"_

"_Wait, wait," Yukari mutters. "Are we all remembering the same thing here? The — the Dark Hour, a while before Minato-kun came to the dorm —"_

_"__Whoa, hold up! Dark Hour?!" Junpei yelps._

"_Yeah, I think we are!" Akihiko growled. "But that never happened! I know it never happened! It can't have, can it?"_

_Ken only looks on helplessly, uncomprehending, as does Fuuka. Labrys opens her mouth, closes it, and then opens it again to say, "You — you mentioned Yu, and Chie! What about 'em, huh? What's goin' on?"_

_Aigis reflexively puts a calming hand on her sister-unit's shoulder. Labrys turns perplexed eyes on Aigis, then back toward the others, but Yukari, Akihiko, and Mitsuru seem so absorbed in whatever they're "remembering" that they don't seem to notice anyone but each other._

"_Takeba — what do you… remember?" Mitsuru asks, gritting her teeth in an apparent attempt to keep her calm._

"_You woke me up, I was annoyed…" Yukari recites in desperate tones. "You said there was a Shadow that was outside of Tartarus for some reason, so we went out to find it… but we found a bunch of other Persona-users instead…"_

"_That's exactly what I remember!" Akihiko said. "Mitsuru called me up, told me to track 'em, but when I found a bunch of kids wandering around during the Dark Hour, I —"_

_"__WHAT are you guys _talking about_?!" Junpei yells, now genuinely scared for his friends. "Remembering what? C'mon, clue me in!"_

"_What did they look like, Takeba?" Mitsuru demanded. "You've never seen them before, so if you remember correctly, then this — this is something to worry about."_

"_What did they look like?" Yukari echoes, surprised by the question. "Um, let me see… one of them was blond, and had this weird white shirt on, with really blue eyes. There was — er — this really thin guy with a hat on, although I remember thinking he looked too pretty to be a guy…"_

"_Go on," Mitsuru says, her composure slipping a bit._

"_There was a guy with headphones around his neck, a girl with black hair, in a red cardigan…" Yukari continues, seeming to gain more confidence in her recollection as she goes, "…and this guy who looked a bit like a gang member, with a skull-and-crossbones shirt on and his jacket hanging like a cape or something over his shoulders. There was also a girl with short hair and a green sweater, and… and there was this pretty girl with two ponytails, and the last one… the guy who summoned that… that Persona, 'Izanagi-no-Okami,' when you passed him the Evoker…"_

_As Yukari states this, she became inexplicably awestruck. As if suddenly remembering this apparent fact themselves, Mitsuru and Akihiko draw in deep breaths and seem to be so taken into the recollection that they gave no notice at all to the bounding and whining Koromaru as he jumped around behind them._

"_What… what does this mean, Mitsuru?" Akihiko asks, clenching his fist on the table._

"_That's what _we _wanna know!" Junpei growls, sounding annoyed. The three of them give a start, and blink as one at the other occupants of the room. As if relieved that they were back amongst the living, Koromaru jumps up at Akihiko and starts licking his face._

"_Hey, hey — down, boy!" Akihiko splutters._

"…_What… what's all this about Yu and them?!" Labrys demands, now in a harsher tone of voice. "Stop talkin' like the rest of us ain't here, they're — they're my friends! So tell me what's goin' on here!"_

"_I…" Mitsuru begins, but she can only settle back into her chair and pick up her wine glass, taking an uncharacteristically large gulp in her attempts to calm herself. "I don't know what's going on either, Labrys," she said. "But our memories, it's like they were just…"_

"_Like our memories are being scribbled over by a five-year-old with a twitchy crayon," Akihiko completes the thought for her, running a frustrated hand through his silver hair. "I can still remember exactly what I actually did that night, but it's like this new version of it's been written on top of the old one. Dammit, what the hell is this…?!"_

_Aigis blinks twice, looking from Akihiko to Mitsuru, then to Ken and Junpei. "I do not detect any alterations to my memories. Do you?"_

"_I don't think so…" Ken says, brow furrowing as if to be doubly sure his memory isn't failing him._

"_Nope," Junpei shrugs. "You guys sure you didn't just have a little too much alcohol or… protein, senpai?" Junpei ends with a shaky laugh, attempting to lighten the mood, but Akihiko pays him no mind._

"_But you guys weren't there that night," Yukari says. "It was just me, Akihiko, and Mitsuru-senpai. So it makes sense that you wouldn't remember, but…"_

"_But even now I'm remembering even more about that night," Mitsuru says, "It's like the memories are etching themselves into my brain as we speak, right alongside the old ones — like a story being written — they said they were runaways, didn't they? So they hadn't been to school?"_

"_Yeah, that Shirogane guy was cool as a cucumber the whole time, no wonder we didn't question it," Akihiko says, now sounding oddly amused._

"_I should be more concerned by the knowledge that they lied to us to get into S.E.E.S.," Mitsuru says quietly. "But for some reason I —"_

_She breaks off then, looking mildly surprised._

"_What is it, senpai?" Fuuka asks._

"…_Shirogane is a woman?" Mitsuru says. "I never would have guessed."_

"…_Huh…" Akihiko says. "But that fun fact aside, what do we _do _about this?"_

_Yukari bites her lip. Labrys looks frustrated and lost. Those among the humans who hadn't experienced the sudden influx of new memories don't seem to quite believe it._

_As for Aigis…_

"_If Narukami-san and his friends have suddenly appeared in your memories of the past where they were previously absent, it follows that they may have gotten involved in an incident involving time-travel."_

_Labrys looks to Aigis in alarm. Fuuka makes a soft, skeptical sound._

"_That seems a little farfetched, doesn't it…?" the analyst says uncertainly._

"_It sounds downright crazy," Ken adds, shaking his head. Junpei nods in agreement with the sentiment._

"_It may," Mitsuru says, "but let us not forget that everyone in this room — Labrys excluded — was involved in an incident that involved visits to the past, and the possibility of an actual trip back in time. It is… not impossible."_

_The reminder of what occurred in the Abyss of Time effectively shuts down all opposition to the idea, although Labrys now looks even more confused._

"_So, like… what do we do?" Junpei asks, echoing Akihiko's earlier question._

"_I need to — I need to check on 'em!" Labrys says, jumping to her feet. "I have to see if they're all alright. Lemme call up Chie, she's prob'ly awake right now —"_

_The android prototype begins digging through her clothes, only seeming to remember where her cell phone was after several seconds of searching. Then she dialed the number, and waited impatiently for nearly half a minute before snapping it shut. "She's not pickin' up," she says._

"_Try her home phone," Mitsuru says calmly. "We shouldn't jump to any conclusions just because we can't reach one of them immediately."_

_Labrys nods, almost shakily, and then scrolls through her phone's list of numbers before pushing the "call" button with perhaps a bit too much force and then pressing the phone to her ear. Before long — "Ah, yeah — this is Labrys, I'm a friend o' Chie. Is she in?"_

_The rest waited in silence, those who had met the Investigation Team in Inaba actually holding their breath out of nerves._

"…_I see. Yeah, thanks," Labrys said quietly. "I'd appreciate that, ma'am. Yeah. G'bye."_

_Labrys closed the phone slowly, her eyes immediately finding Aigis and her voice shaking just the smallest bit as she said in a louder voice._

"_Th-they said Chie didn't come home from school today. And that Yukiko's parents called up lookin' for her, too. It hasn't been that long, but — but it looks like both of 'em have gone missin'."_

"_Then there's no time to lose," Mitsuru said, standing up and slipping into her "Shadow Operative commander" tone of voice. "Aigis, I need you and Labrys to try to get in contact with Narukami and his other friends. Failing that, get in contact with their relatives or relations — anyone who might know their last known whereabouts. Akihiko," she added, as Aigis and Labrys nodded the affirmative, "get ready to leave. It looks like this reunion is going to be cut short. If Narukami and his friends don't turn up, we're going directly to Inaba."_

"_I'm coming, too!" Yukari said. Then, sounding confused by her own statement, she stammered out, "I — I'm worried about them. I'm… why am I so worried about them? I don't even know them…"_

"_It could be because of the memories," Mitsuru said. "…Yes, Takeba, I think it best that you come with us, given that you seem to share these bizarre recollections. In fact, I would appreciate it if all of us took the trip. I have a feeling all of you will experience this phenomenon before long."_

_Junpei pumped a fist into the air. "Hell yeah, I've got your backs!"_

_Ken nods and says, "Of course, Mitsuru-san."_

_Fuuka smiles reassuringly and adds, "You don't even need to ask, senpai."_

_Koromaru chimes in with an affirmative bark._

_Mitsuru looks from each one to the next, nods, and then whips out her own cell phone. "Very well, then. I'll have someone make the arrangements."_

* * *

**Author's Note:** I may have stated that the Shadow Operatives of 2012 wouldn't get involved in this story, when I responded to one or two reviews before this. That is… still somewhat true, as their involvement will be minimal, but in all honesty I hadn't planned on this angle at the time. If I say something and then go in a completely different direction when it comes to actually writing it, please disregard all earlier comments to the contrary. This is just the sort of random way my writing process tends to work: I mostly just fly by the seat of my pants and hope what comes out smells okay. Or some shit like that.


	4. III: His World

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~III~  
"His World"**

* * *

Akihiko Sanada stared around the corner of a building at the motley crew of teenagers with an utterly nonplussed, slack-jawed expression on his face. He was so surprised by this unexpected turn of events that he nearly forgot to duck out of sight as they passed, every last one of them gawking in wonder and disbelief at the supernatural structure before them.

Tartarus dwarfed everything around it, as it did _every_ Dark Hour — its eerie green glow and chaotic architecture had never quite lost that disconcerting effect even for Akihiko, who had seen it either up close or from a distance on an almost-nightly basis since joining S.E.E.S. The tower stood exactly where Gekkoukan High School did during the other twenty-four hours of the day; the only part of the school that remained unaltered during this time were the gates.

Approaching those gates were eight teenagers whom the boxing captain had never seen in his life… and he was pretty sure he couldn't chalk that up to not paying attention to the peanut gallery. Akihiko was a fairly observant guy, so there was no way he'd forget such memorable-looking kids. Were they from a different school, or from out of town altogether…? Either way, while some of them looked anxious, not a one was showing signs of fatigue or disorientation. They were following an odd sort of fellow who in fact looked oddly cheerful given their grim surroundings — blonde with blue eyes, a white shirt, and a rose pinned to his chest. Behind that one, a gray-haired boy was listening attentively to a slender young man with blue hair and a hat, who was muttering to him in hushed tones. A few times, Akihiko saw the gray-haired one nod in agreement with whatever the thin guy was saying. The gray-haired one was wearing a formal outfit with a necktie, but the others all seemed to be sporting dark-gray school uniforms (although the two girls had different-colored tops over these). Bringing up the rear was a particularly intimidating dude with a skull-and-crossbones shirt on, his uniform jacket slung over his shoulders like a cape. Akihiko's first thought was that this one looked like he'd be good in a fight.

Akihiko slipped out of cover and trailed the group down the road and all the way to Tartarus, blessing the distraction that was the tower itself, for none of them thought to keep an eye on their rear… a rookie mistake, he thought. At one point the blonde boy in the lead exclaimed something, and the rest reacted first with alarm and then with interest, but Akihiko was lagging a bit too far behind to catch whatever it was.

Finally, the group of strangers drifted to a halt at the gates and Akihiko managed to slip behind a conveniently-parked S.U.V. He was too close to risk peeking out, but he could hear almost every word they said now.

"Whoa…" said one boy in anxious awe. "Partner, what… what the fuck is this? I remember this place! This is — or, _was _— that school we went to on that trip last year, wasn't it? So where'd this huge tower come from?"

_From out of town, then,_ Akihiko thought.

"Who knows," replied a calm male voice. "But Teddie says it's crawling with Shadows. That means it's bad news. At least we found the front door without any trouble."

Akihiko gave a start. _Teddie says it's crawling with Shadows_, the calm one had said. _Shadows_, he had said! These people knew about the Shadows? How? Just who the hell were they?

"Interesting," said a third voice, which sounded both masculine and feminine at the same time. "If memory serves, Gekkoukan High School is owned and run by the Kirijo Group. I never imagined the school would be tied so directly to their experiments… and yet, here it is… I shudder to imagine the implications."

And at that, Akihiko froze. Not only did they know about the Shadows, they knew about the Kirijo Group's past attempts to experiment with them. Akihiko bit his lip, torn between jumping out of cover to question them directly and quietly contacting Mitsuru, when —

"Um, guys? Guys!"

"What is it, Teddie?"

"That guy who was following us earlier? He's right behind that big green car over there."

…_I guess this "Teddie" just made up my mind for me,_ thought Akihiko, heaving a frustrated sigh.

"Geez, Ted, why didn't you say that before we started running our —?! _Hey! Hey, you back there! I know you can hear me! You'd better come out now, or you'll be sorry!"_

It was one of the girls who shouted for him. Despite how anxious the two had seemed when Akihiko had been in a position to observe them, this one sounded quite forceful and determined now that forcefulness and determination were necessary. In spite of his compromising situation, Akihiko smirked to himself before straightening up and striding out into view.

It took guts to be fearless, but even more to swallow one's fear and do what needed doing anyway. He had to respect that, at the very least.

**- V -**

Chie's teeth-gritting look of Don't Fuck With Me quickly dissolved into blank disbelief the moment the man stepped far enough out of cover to be identifiable. "Mas—?!" she began to blurt out, only to slap her hands over her mouth and blush profusely, glancing in embarrassment at her friends. Sure enough, Yosuke looked like he desperately wanted to palm his face, and Yukiko's mouth twitched dangerously for a second as she fought back one of her infamous laughing fits. _Great_, thought Chie through her mortification. _Great. You go, girl. Blow our cover before we even have any cover. Keep doing that and we'll make an ace police officer outta you, yet._

Even so, the last person she'd expected to see when she'd called out for their stalker to reveal themselves was a younger, fully-clothed Akihiko Sanada. The last time she'd seen this man, he'd been a good two years older and sublimely shirtless, wearing a billowing red cape of all things. Just seeing the man she had dubbed "Master" dressed in such an ordinary outfit was surreal, never mind the hazy green of Whatever-The-Hell-This-Is. Akihiko seemed momentarily thrown off by her outburst, but then gave each of them a hard look, as if measuring them up.

Sure enough, it was Yu Narukami who stepped out and spoke first.

"Who are you? Why are you following us?" he demanded in that even, cool-and-collected leader's voice of his. Chie had to admire his acting skills; if she hadn't known beforehand, she would never have been able to guess that Narukami recognized Akihiko from anywhere at all, let alone actually knew him. The rest of the group — save Naoto — looked a bit stiff, all obviously trying to contain anything that might give them away. Naoto had proposed a good cover story as they had made their way across town, a sort of selectively-honest version of their adventure in 2011; they just had to sell it. As long as Narukami and Naoto did most of the talking, Chie thought it would stick. Maybe. Probably.

Chie's eyes drifted down from Akihiko's face to the gun holstered at his belt. Was that…?

"…Akihiko Sanada," he said. "My name's Akihiko Sanada. As for why I'm following you, it's mostly because seeing a bunch of kids strolling toward Tartarus without a care in the world piqued my curiosity, y'know what I'm sayin'?"

"Tartarus?" Naoto repeated. She spared a glance at the tower, and said, "Ah. That is this structure's name, then?"

"Yeah," Akihiko responded. "You don't know it? You seem familiar enough with Shadows… and the Kirijo Group's involvement with them."

_Oh, gawd!_ Chie thought, forcing her face to remain neutral in spite of their panic. Nothing in their cover story accounted for knowing that the Kirijo Group was involved in Shadow-related misdeeds. But as Chie desperately cast around for some kind of explanation, Naoto spoke without hesitation, wholly unperturbed:

"More familiar with the first than we'd like, and not nearly knowledgeable enough about the second," she said coolly. "We've been involved in a few incidents involving Shadows in the past, but it was only recently that we got wind of possible Shadow activity on Tatsumi Port Island." Naoto looked around at the surrounding buildings and the unnatural night sky for a few moments before asking, "What exactly is this...?"

Akihiko blinked, staring at Naoto blankly for a second before asking, "'What is this?' You mean the Dark Hour?"

"Dark Hour?" Narukami echoed.

Akihiko frowned. "How can you know about Shadows, but not the Dark Hour?"

Naoto frowned. It was only because her friends knew her so well that they could tell how fast she was trying to think up a response. At last she said: "The Shadows we've encountered never appeared outside of a particular location — a kind of 'other world,' if you will. This 'Dark Hour,' as you call it, is completely new to us."

"Other… world?" Akihiko echoed. "Never mind that for now. Just who the hell are you guys?" Then: "Do you guys all have Personas?"

Narukami gave a very convincing start of surprise. "You know about Personas?" he asked.

Akihiko smirked. "Yeah. I'm a Persona-user. Are you?"

"…Yeah," Narukami said slowly. "And yeah, the others are, too."

Akihiko's eyes widened a fraction as his eyes flit from one member of the Investigation Team to the other. "All of you? How? You gotta be shitting me. You don't even have any Evokers."

"Evokers?" Naoto asked.

Akihiko drew the gun-like device at his waist and a good half of the group in front of him let out sounds of surprise and alarm that were quite genuine; even if they knew the Evoker didn't shoot actual bullets, it still looked very much like a gun. Akihiko put the gun to his head as if to shoot himself and said, "This thing. Or can you summon yours without one?"

Most of the Investigation Team looked uncertainly at one another. Yosuke and Yukiko were both quite obviously unnerved by the sight of a man with a gun to his temple. Narukami, in his usual unfazed manner, simply said, "Uh… no. We don't have anything like that. We used to be able to summon our Personas in that 'other world' without any kind of 'help,' but we've never been able to call them out in the real world…"

"So you can't summon yours right now?" Akihiko said, in an almost taunting voice. "Then how do I know you're telling me the truth, huh?"

Narukami remained silent, his gaze fixed on Akihiko's for several long moments, but before anyone could say anything, the distant roar of an engine faded into audibility. Akihiko glanced down the road and said, "And that'll be Mitsuru. Well. At first I was a bit worried about how many of you there were, but if you can't use your Personas and aren't even armed… it looks like the tables have turned, eh?"

Akihiko took a confident step forward, slipping the Evoker back into its belt-holster.

"You guys are gonna answer every last one of my questions," he said in a low, threatening voice. "To start with: how do you _really _know about Personas and Shadows? 'Cause if you think I'm gonna buy that 'other world' bullshit, you're mista—"

"_Akihiko! I told you _not _to engage the Shadow!"_

Chie blinked and looked around, then realized that the angry, exasperated voice she was hearing was coming from Akihiko himself… or rather, from a radio somewhere on his person. Akihiko growled out a protest:

"I didn't, Mitsuru. Listen, there's been a new development. There're a bunch of kids out by Tartarus, and they know about the Shadows."

The voice, which they now recognized as belonging to the Kirijo Group's heiress, went on reprimanding Akihiko for a bit before the speaker registered his response: "_You were just supposed to keep an eye on it until — what did you say?"_

"A bunch of kids. High-schoolers, by the look of 'em, but probably from out of town. They're standing in front of Tartarus, and they know about the Shadows."

"_Wha—? Hold on._" There was a pause. "_Yes, I can sense them, but — Akihiko, what about that Shadow? It's standing right in the middle of them!"_

Bald, obvious realization flickered across every face in the Investigation Team… every face but one: Teddie's. Akihiko looked up at the group in alarm, then fell back into a defensive stance. "What?!"

"W-wait, we can explain!" blurted Yosuke. "It's not what you think!"

"_Hold tight, Akihiko. Takeba and I are almost there."_

Akihiko rushed forward, swinging his fist hard at the nearest target: Yu Narukami, whose eyes widened only the slightest bit as he moved to defend himself —

"_Hai-YA!"_

And Chie moved without thinking, rushing to intercept. Her leg swung out in a wide, sweeping kick that just barely missed Akihiko's head. The boxing captain twisted his upper body out of the way and backpedaled, smirking with excitement as Chie settled back into a defensive stance, but Akihiko didn't press the offensive just yet. Behind her, the other members of the Investigation Team took up defensive positions… around Teddie, who merely stood there and blinked a few times.

"Huh?" was his intelligent response to the sudden aggression on Akihiko's part.

Chie realized that Akihiko was looking past her, and she spared half a glance to see what had attracted his attention. The Investigation Team was forming a protective ring around Teddie… each one looking determined to protect him. Akihiko's eyes lit up with realization.

"So, _you're _the Shadow that Mitsuru was sensing…" he said in a cocky, triumphant voice, looking directly at the blonde boy. "I should've known better than to think this was some kind of chance meeting. She sends me after a Shadow, and I find you guys? It's a clever disguise, I'll give you that. Usually you freaks look like... well, freaks."

Teddie finally seemed to have cottoned on to what was happening, but his protest was lost as Akihiko rushed forward again. Chie, however, was ready. She deftly slipped around his guard and landed a quick, light kick to his right side. A short grunt of pain was the only indication Akihiko gave that he'd been hurt. The boxing captain launched a quick jab that Chie only _mostly _managed to avoid; his fist clipped her in the jaw as it passed, but it was a glancing blow that Chie swatted aside with her own arm before ducking into a low kick — which Akihiko hopped over with ease.

"Dammit, asshole, will you just chill out and listen to us?" Kanji snarled. "Teddie's our friend, it don't matter _what _he is! If you got a problem with him, you got a problem with all of us!"

"Tch!" Akihiko growled. "What, am I supposed to believe that your 'friend' here is some kind of _good _Shadow?"

"That's exactly what he is!" Rise said. "C'mon, you two, stop fighting! If we're all against Shadows, then we're all on the same side, here! Including Teddie!"

Teddie was shrinking back now, his eyes downcast, but at that moment a motorcycle rolled into view, coming to such a sharp halt near them that it was a wonder the two girls astride it didn't die of whiplash.

"Akihiko, _what _is going on here?"

The red-haired beauty at the handlebars wrenched her helmet off with a forceful motion and looked on the scene with a reproachful, almost imperious air. Akihiko and Chie stopped fighting in perfect freeze-frame: Chie with her leg in the air and Akihiko with his arm out to block. Akihiko looked embarrassed, but spoke out in a half-defiant attempt to explain himself.

"Mitsuru, their friend there is actually a Shadow in disguise! And they know it! Don't ask me why they're taking _that thing's _side, but —"

"Didn't you hear what I _said_, you fuckin' jerkoff?!" roared Kanji. "Ted's our friend, dammit!"

"Teddie's been with us through hell and worse!" Yosuke declared, looking from Akihiko to Mitsuru and back again. "He's done more than earn our trust! Hell, we wouldn't even be alive right now if it weren't for him!"

"That's right!" Yukiko said. "So lay off! You haven't even heard our story yet!"

Chie backpedaled, on the defensive again and trying not to think too much about the fact that she was positioned _between _Akihiko and the motorcycle. "Ted might be an annoying, loudmouthed little pervert at times," she said through gritted teeth. "But we love 'im, and we're not letting you lay one _finger_ on him! Personas or no Personas!"

Teddie looked up, lip quivering and eyes shining with unshed tears. "Y-You guys…" he sobbed, the expression of gratitude almost comical in its exaggeration.

Mitsuru slipped off the motorcycle, moving her helmet under one arm as her passenger disembarked behind her. "Akihiko, stand down."

"…Ggh," Akihiko grunted, but apparently chain of command was enough to cool that hot head of his; he lowered his fists and took a step back.

Chie let out a relieved sigh and relaxed her stance, taking this opportunity to get a better look at the two newcomers.

**- V -**

Yukari Takeba slowly removed the motorcycle helmet, trying to quash that girlish, instinctive cringe as she thought of what this must be doing to her hair. _Well, _she mused darkly, _it's better than riding flyaway in the wind, at least. Right?_

As she did, she noticed the short-haired girl's curious eyes move away from Mitsuru and over to _her_, and a strange expression clouded the green-clad martial artist's face then, which Yukari couldn't help but puzzle over. It was as though the girl had been expecting someone in particular and was disappointed to see a total stranger beneath the helmet instead.

She turned her eyes to each of the others in turn. The guy with the skull-and-crossbones shirt just kept on looking pissed-off and wary, while the boy with the headphones around his neck gawped at Yukari quite openly. _Ugh… that one's a shameless perv like Junpei, I bet,_ she thought with distaste. The slender, blue-haired boy's gaze was serious and intense, but gave away nothing; her only solid impression of that one was that he looked a bit too pretty for a guy. The blonde boy — it was hard to believe he could possibly be a Shadow, he was so wide-eyed and innocent-looking. The girl in the red cardigan met Yukari's eyes with a curious expression, and Yukari instantly felt like the two of them were on similar wavelengths. The other girl, with the two ponytails, simply sighed in relief while the silver-haired boy stepped forward.

"Thank you for calling him off," said this boy. He had a very neutral, calm demeanor… Yukari couldn't get a read on him, but it somehow struck her as reassuring. "Things were getting a little out of hand," the boy continued, seemingly unfazed by Mitsuru's piercing stare. He looked back at Akihiko and said, "I think we should start over. My name is Yu. These are my friends: Yosuke —" (He gestured to the headphone-wearing boy, who snapped his attention away from Yukari's lower regions and raised a hand in greeting) "— Chie —" (At this the short-haired girl who'd been fighting with Akihiko snapped off a mini-salute and said, "Yo!") "— Yukiko —" (The black-haired girl bowed and said, "Nice to meet you all…") "— Kanji —" (The thuggish brute just grunted) "— Rise —" (The last girl of the bunch smiled warmly and said "Nice to meetcha!" with such enthusiasm that Yukari had to smile) "— Teddie —" (The blonde boy shifted awkwardly and said nothing) "— and Naoto."

The thin boy in the hat stepped forward at this. "We are an investigation team, of a sort," said Naoto. "We came to Tatsumi Port Island to look into reports of strange happenings in the area…"

"You mean the Apathy Syndrome," Mitsuru stated more than asked. Akihiko moved to stand with the other two members of S.E.E.S. as she spoke, his eyes never leaving Teddie nor losing their chill.

"Just so," Naoto said. "We've had run-ins with Shadows in the past and decided to look into matters to confirm our suspicions of Shadow activity in the region. It appears as if we were correct," he added, turning to look at the tower. "Although this is… quite a lot more than we expected to find here."

"I call bullshit," Akihiko said darkly. "Mitsuru, they say they're Persona-users and have fought Shadows before, but they don't even know about the Dark Hour. They claim they fought Shadows in some 'other world,' if you can believe _that _—"

"Another world?" Mitsuru echoed. Instead of sharing Akihiko's skepticism, strangely, Yukari noticed a definite note of alarm and curiosity in her tone. She looked from Akihiko to the one who'd introduced himself as Yu. "Do tell."

"…I'd rather know just who I'm talking to first," Yu said evenly.

"Of course — forgive my rudeness," Mitsuru said professionally. _Ugh, _Yukari thought again. It was exactly this sort of tone that… you know what, never mind that right now. "My name is Mitsuru Kirijo, and this is Yukari Takeba. The one you've already met is Akihiko Sanada."

Yukari shifted her weight from her left foot to her right, feeling like deadweight. Mitsuru, naturally, was doing all of the talking. She didn't even know why Mitsuru had felt the need to drag her out of bed for this; she'd only just joined S.E.E.S., after all, and didn't even have her own Evoker yet. She had her bow (on a harness at her back, along with a quiver of arrows), but she wouldn't be much use against Shadows without her Persona.

"Kirijo?" the boy called Naoto cut in abruptly. "As in the Kirijo Group? Forgive me for saying so, but the Kirijo Group is half the reason we decided to investigate this city."

"Is it, now?" Mitsuru said neutrally. "Did your past encounters with Shadows have anything to do with my father's company, then?"

…What an odd question, Yukari thought. Well, she knew the Kirijo Group had an interest in fighting Shadows, but there seemed to be a bit more weight to the question that Yukari couldn't quite comprehend.

"No," Yu said. "Our previous battles occurred in a world formed by human thought — one that could only be accessed by passing through television screens in a town called Inaba."

"What a load of —"

"That's enough, Akihiko," Mitsuru said in a warning tone of voice. Then, to Yu: "That sounds more than a little farfetched, Yu-san. Do you have any means of proving your story?"

"Unfortunately not," Yu sighed. "The TV World we explored once is completely closed off now, to the best of our knowledge. It's better that way. Someone — a man named Adachi — was using that world as a way to commit untraceable murders. It's been months since then, but we've kept our eyes open for signs of Shadow activity elsewhere." He cast an appraising glance at Akihiko then. "We didn't know there were other Persona-users out there…"

"Hm…" Mitsuru hummed thoughtfully. "You say you're Persona-users? Can you summon your Personas without an Evoker, then?"

"Is that even possible?" Yukari asked, breaking her silence for the first time.

"In _theory_," Akihiko said, almost snidely. "But these guys claim they can only summon theirs in that _other world._"

Mitsuru closed her eyes and smiled in that infuriatingly superior way of hers (_God, she just gets under my skin _so _bad,_ Yukari fumed internally) and walked forward, drawing her Evoker as she did. The group of strangers all tensed up for an instant, before realizing she was holding the Evoker out to Yu, gripping it by the barrel.

"Then if you're truly a Persona-user, you should be able to use this to summon during the Dark Hour," she said simply. "I'll take your word for the rest, if you can at least prove that much."

"Wha—? Mitsuru!" protested Akihiko, but the Kirijo heiress silenced him with a sharp look as she stepped back. Yu looked down at the gun-like device uneasily, and Yukari's own heart rate started to speed up. She would be faced with the same challenge soon enough…

"You get the gist of how to use it, right?" Akihiko taunted. "Just put it to your head and pull the trigger. Unless you're too chicken… or just a liar."

Yu glanced up from the Evoker and then looked down at it again. Yukari noticed him gulp a bit. Then —

"Naoto, step back," Yu said.

"Yes, senpai," the thin boy responded softly, moving to rejoin the rest of their group, who were all looking at Yu with trepidation. Then the silver-haired boy raised the pistol and pressed it to his own right temple.

Yukari might have been imagining it, but she felt herself start to sweat at the same time _he _started to sweat, and had to will herself not to tremble or look away.

Yu held the gun to his head for almost ten full seconds without doing anything. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead and into his eyebrow. The hand that held the gun started to shake almost imperceptibly.

Yukari's vision faded white for a moment and she took a deep breath to dispel the dizziness, closing her eyes and clenching her fists. It was hopeless. If just seeing someone struggle with it was this hard, how the hell did she expect she'd manage it herself…?

"You can do it, senpai!"

Yukari's eyes snapped open. The shout had come from the girl named… Rise, was it? It was immediately followed by a show of support from the one called Teddie.

"That's right, Sensei! You can do it!"

Then, Naoto spoke in a low voice that nonetheless seemed to pierce the Dark Hour itself: "Yes, senpai. We're with you. Pull the trigger."

"Yu-kun, we believe in you." That was the black-haired girl, Yukiko.

"C'mon, Yu-kun, this is nothing! You've faced death head-on more times than I can count! A little thing this won't stop you!" That was Chie, the short-haired girl.

The headphone-wearing one chimed in next: "That's right, Partner, now show these guys what a _real _Persona looks like!"

"You mean like a disco-fiend with a sun for an afro, Yosuke-senpai?" the thug-like Kanji put in with a snort. But as Yosuke sputtered a protest, Kanji roared: "You _go, _Yu-senpai! Show these clowns what it takes to be a real man!"

Yukari found herself oddly… warmed by the display, cheesy as it was, and looked to Yu. Then, she gasped.

The trembling in his hand had stopped, and he was smiling.

**- V -**

Yu Narukami breathed in, and out. His heart slowed. His hand steadied. His doubts faded.

They were there, behind him, as always. And, he knew, it wasn't just them. Kou and Daisuke back home, and Yumi, and Ai. The fox at the shrine. The nurse, Sayoko. Yuuta's mother, Eri. Shu, the boy he'd tutored part-time. The old lady he'd spent time with down by the river, Hisano. Margaret, Igor's assistant in the Velvet Room. And his family back in Inaba: his uncle, Ryotaro Dojima, and cousin Nanako. And Marie, as well. Hell… even Adachi was behind him, though the disgraced detective may not have known it.

His friends, his loved ones… his "World." Absolutely nothing — neither space nor time — could diminish bonds such as these.

All trepidation gone from his mind, all tension vanished from his body, Narukami smiled. Then he whispered the word, the word that had started it all:

"_Per… so… na…_"

**- V -**

Mitsuru Kirijo hadn't actually doubted that the boy and his friends were truly Persona-users. Even as unbelievable as the story of a world accessed via televisions was, she was willing to reserve judgment and hear them out to the very end — with Shadows, after all, there was really no telling what might be possible.

So she was unsurprised when the gunshot sounded. What burst from the other side of Yu's head was not blood or brains but a luminous blue energy, like ghostly shards of broken glass, and Yu was enveloped in an aura of power…

What Mitsuru was _not _expecting was the sheer _amount _of power. Even without actually summoning Penthesilea, there was no way she _wouldn't _have sensed this power at this range! She found herself backing up reflexively, at a loss for breath, and only stopped because her motorcycle was in the way. And the Persona hadn't even materialized yet…!

As if this realization had called it into a being, a humanoid figure faded into view directly above its summoner. Mitsuru could only stare at the apparition in wonder. Akihiko, likewise, was struck speechless.

"…Whoa…"

That one had come from Yukari. It just about summed up Mitsuru's only coherent thought on the matter.

Yu's friends all seemed nearly as stunned by the Persona as S.E.E.S. was, but Mitsuru was in no condition to consider that detail: she was too busy taking in the Persona's appearance. It was clad in white, a long coat with what looked like a golden-colored necktie, and masked. Its feet appeared to be bladed, but that seemed of no significance compared to the wickedly long blade-staff in its right hand, which sported a large golden ring-blade around its grip. The Persona seemed to hover there for a moment that lasted an eternity, and then it faded away.

As it did, Mitsuru remembered that she had lungs, and breathed again. Akihiko's awestruck hiss of profanity nearly went unheard.

"Holy _shit_, Partner! Which Persona was _that?!"_

Mitsuru blinked, taking several seconds to decipher this question. What? What did he mean by "which Persona?" As she wondered this, the other members of the boy's team all expressed similar questions, except for Naoto, who seemed to be making an immense effort to contain himself.

"That was… Izanagi-no-Okami…" panted Yu, rubbing at his forehead with his free hand. The Evoker now hung limp at his side. "It was… I haven't used this one since last March."

Mitsuru was too distracted to catch the fleeting look of understanding that passed over many a face in the Investigation Team at the words "since last March." She immediately latched onto the detail that confused her the most:

"What do you mean by 'which Persona was that?' and 'this one?'" she asked sharply. "Are you telling me that you're capable of using more than one Persona?"

At this question, most of the Investigation Team immediately flinched, looking as if they'd been caught. Yu, however, was unrattled… although he might have been too preoccupied with his apparent headache to care. "Yeah…" he said, "I can hold multiple Personas and switch between them when I want to."

Akihiko made a halfhearted sound of skepticism, but the wind had effectively been taken right out from under his sails and it was clear to Mitsuru that he hadn't yet regained his composure. Yukari was staring at the place where Izanagi-no-Okami had disappeared, as if she'd never seen anything like it and never would again. Mitsuru now dearly wanted to question these kids; the things they might know about Shadows and Personas were clearly outside the scope of the Kirijo Group's research. And the Chairman would be over the moon when he found out they'd discovered no less than _eight _potential recruits…

Mitsuru straightened up, strode over to Yu, and said, "That was… more than sufficient. Thank you, Yu-san."

Yu grinned in a slightly strained way and held out the Evoker for her to take. When she did, she turned toward her motorcycle.

"The Dark Hour will end soon," Mitsuru said. "I'd like to speak to all of you somewhere private, if you'll consent to it."

Yu looked back at his team. One by one they nodded or voiced their assent. Once he'd gotten unanimous approval, he looked back at the Kirijo heiress and gave a short nod himself. Mitsuru smiled.

"Thank you," she said. "Takeba and Akihiko will show you to the location where the three of us plan our operations. We can all explain ourselves more thoroughly once we're there."

Yukari and Akihiko both looked at Mitsuru, the latter with a grimace and the former still looking a bit emotionally windswept, but both nodded in sync with each other, acknowledging the order. Satisfied, Mitsuru bid them all adieu for the moment and donned her helmet.

As she rode off into the night, her mind raced faster than her motorcycle ever could. Where would this development lead…?

* * *

**Author's Note:** The structure seen over the past few chapters is going to be a regular event in this fanfiction — when the story cuts to 2012 for a Recollection chapter and the Shadow Operatives of the present day remember what occurred during this alternate timeline, the chapters that follow will typically cover those same memories in greater detail. It's a bit of an experiment on my part, since by doing this I risk "spoiling" the important plot points before they actually occur. I guess I'll see how it turns out as I go, huh?

One thing to keep in mind: the reason only Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Yukari remembered meeting the Investigation Team last chapter was because only Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Yukari were a part of S.E.E.S. at this point in the timeline. When the timeline moves forward to the point where the others encounter them, the others will start to experience the same dual-memory phenomenon as well.

One final note: I'm aware that this chapter gender-swaps where Naoto is involved. That's because Akihiko, Yukari, and Mitsuru presently perceive Naoto as a boy, so when a scene is told from their point of view they see her as a "he." This misunderstanding will be cleared up shortly.


	5. IV: Closer to the Universe

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~IV~  
"Closer to the Universe"**

* * *

Akihiko hadn't realized it until he tried to think straight for the first time since that Yu kid had summoned his Persona, but… he was dog-tired. Not in the sense that he was physically fatigued, of course. He'd spent no more time training over recent weeks than he did normally, so it wasn't like he'd strained his endurance or anything. It was just…

_It's just that we haven't been making any real difference up until now, or fighting any challenging Shadows. We can't even explore Tartarus properly until we recruit new members…_

Yeah, he realized, that was probably it. He was tired of resting on his laurels — he wanted to get out there and actually fight. Ever since Shinji'd left, though, the only Shadows he'd had a chance to fight were the irregular, few-and-far-between ones he'd come across while out on "patrol" (really just routine walks during the Dark Hour, just something he did on his own from time to time — much to Mitsuru's chagrin). Shadows very rarely appeared outside of Tartarus. As it happened, he saw more action in the boxing ring than he did working with S.E.E.S., which in his mind was bass-ackwards.

So the current situation was slightly frustrating for him; he'd went and gotten himself all jazzed-up for a fight before he'd met these kids, and hadn't quite been in the right state of mind to listen to reason. Now he felt a bit like a jerkass, so the silence was awkward as he and Yukari led the group of Persona-users through the city and toward the Iwatodai dorm.

They were only a short ways from the Moonlight Bridge when Akihiko checked his phone for the third time and declared, "Alright, we need to get out of sight while we wait for the Dark Hour to end. It'll be over in about two minutes; we don't want to give anyone a heart attack by 'appearing out of thin air' when they get outta their coffins…"

"Oh! Good thinking, senpai," Yukari said, glancing up and down the street uneasily. There were only a few Transmogrified pedestrians here, probably high school kids on their way back home from Paulownia Mall, currently in the form of upright coffins. At this, though, one of the 'investigation team' kids spoke up.

"When they get out of their coffins, Akihiko-san?" the girl in red (Yukiko, was it?) asked. "What do you mean?"

"You'll see," Akihiko replied. "Quick, over here…"

The boxing captain ushered them all around a corner, where with a quick glance around he confirmed that there were no coffins nearby. This would do; when the Dark Hour ended, they would just walk around the corner and be on their merry way.

"Am I to understand that the coffins we've been seeing are actually people?" asked the blue-haired boy, Naoto. It was Yukari who answered.

"Um, yeah, actually," she said. "I know it's hard to believe, but most people don't know the Dark Hour even happens at all. They turn into coffins and just sleep right through it, and then the world wakes up when it's over and goes on like nothing happened."

"That's some freaky-ass shit," replied the one named Kanji. "So, what, only people with Personas don't turn into coffins?"

"Well, not _only _Persona-users, but…" Yukari began, faltering as she searched for a good way to explain the Dark Hour to the newcomers.

"Most normal people don't experience the Dark Hour," Akihiko cut in, "but every so often someone won't Transmogrify, or someone'll leave their coffin partway through. Sometimes those people have the potential, like we do. So they're more or less safe."

"Potential?" echoes the head-phone wearing kid (Yusuke? Yosuke? …Whatever).

"He means people who might be able to use Personas," Yukari clarified.

Akihiko nods. "Yeah. Part of our job involves keeping an eye out for people who can experience the Dark Hour without falling prey to Shadows… most people who do only last one or two nights before Apathy Syndrome kicks in, though…"

"So if a person has 'the potential,' they're safe. But if not, they develop a mental condition. That about sum it up?"

The calm voice of the apparent leader somehow put Akihiko at ease with the whole situation. Yeah, these kids new approximately jack-all about the Dark Hour, but they were no strangers to extraordinary circumstances. Really, when Akihiko thought about it, he already knew that Shadows had to exist somewhere or somehow before the Dark Hour had been introduced to the world… how else had the Kirijo Group discovered them in the first place? Maybe this "world inside the TV," as stupid as it sounded at first blush, had something to do with that.

"That's the long and short," Akihiko said carelessly, eyes still on his cell phone clock.

Yu nodded, evidently satisfied. The rest of them seemed to understand that the rest of the answers they wanted wouldn't come until they'd reached their destination. Akihiko glanced at Teddie for the first time, who flinched and looked at his toes, hands clasped behind his back in such a childish display of shyness that Akihiko had to wonder why he'd been so adamant about fighting it in the first place. It was hard to believe that someone like this Teddie guy could possibly be one of the creatures that preyed on people's minds every midnight.

"…Sorry about before," Akihiko grunted out, as he turned his eyes back to his cell phone clock. About twenty seconds to go.

"Eh?!" yelped Teddie, looking up.

"I said I'm sorry," Akihiko snapped. "Now pipe down, the Dark Hour's about to end."

"Oh! Well, apology accepted," Teddie said, and Akihiko could see a sunny, pure-white smile out of the corner of his eye. Yeah, he thought, this goofball might technically be a Shadow, but he was miles away from the Shadow's _he'd _fought…

**- V -**

The change of the hour caused most of the Investigation Team to look around in surprise and awe, as the green haze and oppressive atmosphere simply faded away. In the same moment, the streetlights — which had all been turned off since they'd emerged from the alley — simultaneously blazed with light that prompted Narukami to shut his eyes, just a moment too late to prevent the spots from burning into his vision. Trying in vain to blink them away, the team's leader glanced around the corner at the coffins they'd passed mere minutes before — and sure enough, a man and a woman were now walking up the road toward the Moonlight Bridge hand-in-hand. Evidently the Dark Hour had caught them in the midst of a romantic nighttime stroll.

The uncomfortable feeling that Narukami associated with the TV World had given way to the more mundane discomfort of mild humidity, which Narukami normally wouldn't have blinked at. But his head still throbbed with a dull pain that felt like the ghost of an entry-and-exit gunshot wound. Which, he supposed, it kind of was. He just hoped it wouldn't happen every time he used an Evoker to summon… quite apart from not being able to take the pain, he didn't think he wanted to risk having to fight to fight through the distraction of a Persona-induced "hangover."

"Huh," Yosuke piped up, interrupting Narukami's train of thought. "And everything just turns back on like nothing happened at all. Hey, what happens if someone's, like, playing a videogame when the Dark Hour hits?"

"I imagine it just keeps going as if the Dark Hour never occurred at all," Naoto answered clinically. "There are far too many people in the world who occupy themselves with such things overnight for it to have gone unnoticed if every videogame played at night were interrupted at the stroke of twelve."

"I guess that makes sense," Yosuke agreed, folding his arms across his chest and nodding. "Still, it's pretty wild. Say, partner, you don't think _we _experienced this at all, you know, before the TV World and everything, do you?"

"I dunno," Narukami muttered, rubbing at his temple. "Maybe. I don't remember it, though."

"It's normal for Persona-users to experience memory loss or disorientation the first few times they experience the Dark Hour," Akihiko said. "People without the potential don't even remember it at all."

"Huh," Rise said. "I wonder why. Hey, senpai, you okay?"

"Yeah, just a headache," Narukami said with a grimace. "I don't think that Evoker thing agrees with me."

"You'll get used to it," Akihiko said simply. "Anyway, the dorm's back in Iwatodai, not far from the bridge. We'd better not keep Mitsuru waiting."

"Of course not…" the girl named Yukari said as the group set off after Akihiko. Narukami definitely caught a touch of annoyance in her tone. But rather than elaborating, she changed the subject: "Think she's going to call Ikutsuki-san?"

"Probably," Akihiko said. "No telling if he'll have time to come, but I have a feeling he'll show up whether he has time or not."

"I'm sorry, but… who are you talking about?" asked Yukiko.

"Oh, we mean Shuji Ikutsuki," Yukari answered cheerfully. Despite appearing drowsy, she seemed to perk up a bit in response to Yukiko — Narukami thought she might have just taken an instant liking to her. "He's sort of like the adviser for S.E.E.S. That's, um, us. Me, Akihiko, and Mitsuru, I mean."

Yukiko leaned over to get a better look at the peculiar red armband that Yukari was wearing. Narukami, from his angle, could see it clearly, but hadn't thought to read it up until that point: indeed, it identified Yukari as a member of a group called "S.E.E.S." There were smaller words beneath the abbreviation, but from where he stood only the word "Specialized" was visible.

"S.E.E.S.?" asked Chie. "What's that stand for?"

"Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad," Akihiko answered. Chie looked to him quickly and then away again, clearly uncomfortable in his presence. Narukami wondered if it was because of their unfinished bout or because she knew him from the present day.

"Execution?" Yukiko squeaked. "Like, death sentences?"

"Ugh, yeah," Yukari said, rolling her eyes. "Apparently it's some kind of private joke between Akihiko-senpai and Mitsuru-senpai."

"It's what happens when you piss Mitsuru off," Akihiko answered with such seriousness that Narukami felt a chill run down his spine. Yosuke laughed, but there was a touch of uneasiness to it and Akihiko did not join him.

"S.E.E.S., huh…" Teddie said, his face crinkled in an expression of deep thought. Then, with such a _Eureka! _look on his face that Narukami could have sworn for a moment that a lightbulb appeared above his head, he declared: "_Ah_… I sees it, now…"

"…Uh… what?" Chie asked, looking bewildered. Yukiko, on the other hand, smacked her hand to her mouth to stifle a snicker.

Narukami blinked, trying to figure out what Yukiko found amusing about the badly-grammared statement, when Yosuke groaned and said, "Dude… that was bad. No, that was _terrible._ Eleven out of five on the lameness scale. Never use that one again."

Akihiko raised an eyebrow and Yukari tilted her head to the side, neither of them getting it. The Investigation Team, on the other hand…

Kanji: "…I don't get it."

Chie: "…Oh. I get it. And Yosuke's right… never use that again, Ted, it was awful.

Naoto: "What an incredibly forced play on words…"

Yukiko: "…_Snrk…!_"

Narukami: "…Ah, I see what you did there. And it wasn't funny."

Yukari looked from the snickering Yukiko to the bland-faced Narukami and then said, "Huh?"

Teddie, fool's grin blazing at full strength, chimed in: "I _sees it_ now! You get it, right? 'cause you guys are S.E.E.S. and we're the Investigation Team, you get it?"

Yukari stared at Teddie with a slack-jawed look. Akihiko just groaned and muttered something under his breath from which Narukami only caught the name "Ikutsuki-san."

At length Yukari simply shook her head and continued to walk, at which point Yukiko burst into peals of laughter which did not subside until the group had reached the opposite side of the bridge.

**- V -**

The Chairman arrived shortly before the strange group of Persona-users. Mitsuru _had_ called him up on the way back, but she was surprised by how quickly he made his way to the dorm, considering he had been asleep when she'd called and had only a bicycle as a means of transport during the Dark Hour. Shuji Ikutsuki's first question was whether Mitsuru had anything to drink, but immediately after that he'd pressed her for everything she could tell him about the Persona-users she'd encountered. Evidently he was just as excited about the possibility of recruiting them as she'd expected him to be.

Their conversation was interrupted mere minutes later, however, by the front door opening. Akihiko strode in, followed by Yukari, who smiled brightly and gestured at the entire lounge, saying, "And here we are, home sweet home! …Oh, Ikutsuki-san, you're already here?"

"Of course, Yukari," the Chairman responded with a smile. "When Mitsuru told me about our guests, I just had to meet them for myself. So, these are the ones you told me about, Mitsuru?" he added as the teenagers slipped into the dorm one by one, several of them casting admiring looks around the lounge. Mitsuru understood that it was better-furnished than most high school dormitories, but in truth she had no concept of what the difference might be. Judging by the uniforms that all of them except Yu were wearing, it seemed these kids all went to the same school… although she didn't recognize the design.

"Yes, Mr. Chairman," Mitsuru said with a nod.

"No less than… one, two… _eight _Persona-users, and one of them a Shadow, you say?" Ikutsuki said in tones of mild excitement. Stepping forward, he smiled and introduced himself. "Greetings and good evening to all of you. My name is Shuji Ikutsuki. I'm the Chairman of the Board at Gekkoukan High School, have you heard of it…?"

"Indeed we have," the slender boy said, stepping forward to speak for the entire group. Mitsuru noticed that the rest of them, save for Yu, seemed to almost visibly clam up. She wondered briefly if they had agreed amongst themselves as to who would do the talking. "Gekkoukan High School, a private institution built by the Kirijo Group, rebuilt in the year 1999 following a mysterious incident officially stated in newspapers to be an explosion. The school has a good reputation, I hear."

"Quite so," Ikutsuki said, sounding surprised and impressed. "You've researched the school, then? Considering a transfer?" He added in a joking tone.

"Not exactly." Yu stepped up beside Naoto then. He spoke in that calm voice of his, which contrasted sharply next to the serious intensity of the slender boy next to him. Mitsuru thought then that she could understand why Yu and Naoto would have been chosen to do the majority of the talking. Between Yu, who was clearly difficult to rattle or fluster, and the slender boy next to him, whose intelligence was obvious, she could hardly imagine a better pair for diplomatic purposes. "As we told the others, we're an Investigation Team — we came to Port Island to look into the Apathy Syndrome problem."

"Mitsuru tells me you suspected Shadow involvement," Ikutsuki said. "If so, you were correct. But this is hardly the place to speak of such matters. The command room is just upstairs, on the fourth floor. We can compare notes on the matter in privacy there."

"Sounds good to me," Yu replied with a faint smile. He sent a brief look back at his friends, who all caught his eye and seemed to relax from their previous unease. Mitsuru had to marvel at the way they all seemed to follow his lead without so much as a verbal cue.

When she looked back on the events of that night afterward, she would realize that it was this, more than anything she had seen or heard so far, that convinced her of the group's honesty. The way they clearly worked together, the amount of trust they placed in their leader, could only have come from hard experience. Just how long had these kids been fighting Shadows? If they had the sort of experience that Mitsuru believed they might, they would be invaluable assets to S.E.E.S., if she could only convince them to join…

The group followed the Chairman up the stairs. With a look at Akihiko and Takeba, Mitsuru strode up the steps behind them. Neither of them, of course, got the message she had hoped to convey quite as quickly as the Investigation Team had. That was a small, but important, indicator of the difference between S.E.E.S. and the Investigation Team, Mitsuru knew.

Experience. Trust. Unity.

Mitsuru understood that well enough to know when it was there and when it wasn't, but she wondered if it were even possible for S.E.E.S. itself to achieve such a state when she couldn't even bring herself to tell Takeba what had actually caused the problem they were trying to fix…

**- V -**

"And here we are!" Ikutsuki said jovially as he threw open the find double-doors on the on the fourth-floor landing, revealing a large room in which quite the impressive bank of computer consoles dominated the middle of the left-hand wall. As he entered, Naoto close behind and the rest of the team following in their usual disorderly way, Narukami pulled his eyes away from this novelty and took in the rest of the room. A table stood in the center, surrounded by an expensive-looking couch, armchair, and cushioned stool-like seats. There probably wasn't enough room for all of them to sit down, unless Mitsuru or Akihiko gave up a spot. Narukami shared a look with Naoto, who had apparently seen the same thing. Both of them knew that the subtle things could be just as important as the obvious ones…

…so when Ikutsuki sat down in the armchair at the head of the table and said, "Please, all of you, have a seat," Narukami and Naoto politely declined as the rest of the team picked out seats. In the end the two "spokespeople" of the Investigation Team remained standing, while the girls sat on the couch with Mitsuru and Yukari and the guys claimed seats around the table along with Akihiko.

Shuji Ikutsuki was unfamiliar to Narukami, and Naoto's carefully neutral expression betrayed nothing as to whether the detective recognized him from anywhere. He was a well-groomed man, though his long hair was vaguely windswept at the moment — Narukami guessed he must have come to the dorm in a hurry. He was dressed formally, wearing a suit and turtleneck. His smile remained fixed in place the entire way up the stairs beneath a pair of glasses which he adjusted only once as they passed the third floor.

There was something vaguely artificial about Ikutsuki's cheerful manner, but Narukami thought he understood why. The Chairman obviously wanted to stay on the Investigation Team's good side, probably because he wanted to convince them to join forces with S.E.E.S. That suited Narukami's purposes quite nicely. While they hadn't intended to make contact with Mitsuru's team so soon, if they played their cards right this could speed things up quite a bit. The tricky part was going to be explaining why they had no identities or school records, and he and Naoto hadn't had a chance to smooth out that part of the cover story yet…

"Now, then," Ikutsuki said, looking around at those gathered before him. "You've no doubt been given a brief explanation about who we are and what we do, but allow me to officially introduce you to our group. We are the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad… 'S.E.E.S.' for short. On paper, we're classified as a school club at Gekkoukan High, but in truth, we are a group dedicated to fighting the Shadows. And as you're aware, the Shadows have been active in the region for quite some time."

"Yeah," Narukami said. "Although we still don't completely understand the situation yet. What exactly is the Dark Hour?"

"You could say it's the 'hidden' hour," Ikutsuki replied. "It occurs every night at precisely midnight, as it did tonight. It happens every night, and it will continue to happen every night to come. It is only during this time that the Shadows appear, although Mitsuru tells me you've encountered them previously under… different circumstances. Another world, of some sort?"

"That is correct," Naoto said. "The world in which we fought Shadows was a kind of alternate reality that, until a few months ago, could only be accessed by Persona-users in the town of Inaba. For a time, televisions in the Inaba region could all be used by those with Personas as a gateway to a world in which Shadows dwelt, and in which a person's Shadow could be brought to the surface."

"A person's Shadow?" Yukari asked. "What do you mean by that?"

Narukami nodded at Yukiko, who looked like she wanted to answer but was holding herself back. Yukiko flashed a grateful smile at the team's leader before turning to Yukari and responding, "A person's Shadow is sort of like another side of them, the part they don't want to face or admit to anyone else. When a person without a Persona enters the TV World — or was thrown in by someone else, like I was — their Shadow comes out and tries to make them deny it."

"Their Shadow 'tries to make them deny it?'" Yukari echoed. Then: "Wait, what do you mean you were 'thrown' in?"

"I think it would be best if you started from the beginning, Naoto-san," Mitsuru suggested. "How did you all find out about this 'TV World' in the first place?"

"From the beginning, then," Naoto agreed. "Although I personally did not enter the picture until much later…"

"It started with my buddy over there," Yosuke supplied, jabbing a thumb carelessly over his shoulder at Narukami, "sticking his hand through a flatscreen right in the middle of a store."

"That… pretty much is how it all began, yeah," Narukami said uncomfortably. "While we — that is, Yosuke, Chie, and I —" (he gestured at each of them in turn) "— were trying to wrap our heads around what was happening, Yosuke noticed that there were customers coming and we were startled into falling into the TV World by accident."

"'Startled' is what you call it when two idiots run around like headless chickens and somehow manage to tumble into a television screen in the process, huh?" Chie mumbled, scratching at the back of her head. Yukiko looked at Chie in surprise.

"Wait, is _that_ how it happened?" she laughed, putting a hand over her mouth in a vain effort to hide her glee. Chie nudged Yukiko in the ribs.

"A-anyway," Chie stammered as the attention of S.E.E.S. focused on her. "That's when we met Teddie. We were looking around for a way out, Yosuke was whining about his bladder, and —"

"And Teddie saves the day!" said the most excitable of the team, punching the air enthusiastically.

"How?" Mitsuru said. "From the sound of this other world, it doesn't appear that one can leave once they've entered it."

Narukami spoke up again: "We don't really understand how or why, but Teddie has always had the ability to create an exit TV that could take us back to the real world. So really, even though Teddie _is_ a Shadow, we wouldn't have survived our first trip to the TV World without him."

Ikutsuki leaned forward, gazing intently at Teddie, who grinned right back, oblivious to the open curiosity on the Chairman's face. "If I might ask," he said, "why did you help them get out, if you really are a Shadow?"

"Before all the trouble began, Teddie's world was a peaceful place," the blonde boy said in a quiet, nostalgic voice. "I just wanted to live there peacefully, but someone was throwing people in and making a mess of things! At first, I thought Sensei and the others had been thrown in, too, but then Sensei and Yosuke came back on their own."

"Yeah, and you accused _us _of being the killers," Yosuke groaned. "Dude, how dense can you be? It was obvious we were doing recon. We even had a lifeline and everything, and why would we throw _ourselves _in?"

As Teddie huffed in indignation, Narukami cut across the two before any bickering could break out. "At any rate, it was Teddie who asked us to find out who was throwing people into the TV World. Around that time, a few people had mysteriously disappeared and we found… places that were obviously connected to them during our first two trips into the TV World. So it wasn't hard to figure out what had happened, especially after Yosuke's Shadow emerged and we learned the rules of that world."

Naoto and Narukami had both agreed it would be best to tactfully neglect the more poignant, confirmable details of their adventure: the corpses that re-appeared in the real world after the victims died, the fog, the Midnight Channel, the identities of the first two victims. They were already pushing matters by naming Adachi as the culprit and stating Inaba to be the location of the incidents, but their story would seem too shaky if those two things went unsaid… and they hadn't had any time to invent substitutes. Narukami hoped that this wouldn't come back to bite them later on.

"Yosuke-san, _your _Shadow emerged?" Mitsuru asked, intrigued. "Please, describe it for me. The Shadows we've encountered have never behaved quite the way Yukiko-san claims."

"I'd really rather not," Yosuke said quickly. "I mean, it was just me, but it was a 'me' who had no problem spilling all my deepest, darkest feelings, you know? …It's not something most people wanna talk about…"

Naoto stepped forward. "In general terms, a person's Shadow within the TV World will usually assume an exaggerated guise designed to over-emphasize their suppressed emotions. The Shadow of a person with insecurities regarding their… their gender, for example, might appear as a mad scientist that voices the intent to perform a body-alteration procedure on the victim."

_Insecurities regarding their…? Naoto, you didn't need to…_ Narukami tried to keep a straight face as the other Investigation Team members shot the high school detective fleeting looks of surprise. The example she had given had been her own Shadow. Well, Narukami reflected as he cleared his throat to divert attention away from the awkwardly-shifting Naoto, hers _was_ among the less-embarrassing ones. Mitsuru and Akihiko were sending the detective questioning looks, though; it seemed they'd caught on to the unspoken truth behind the example. Yukari, thankfully, seemed oblivious.

"Each of my friends on the Investigation Team was forced to face their Shadow like Yosuke did, at some point or another," Narukami said. "That was how they awakened their Personas. When a person's Shadow is accepted by its owner, it turns into a Persona and that person is able to control it freely from then on."

"So you all earned your Personas by facing your other selves," Mitsuru said, a trace hint of admiration in her tone. "That must have taken a lot of courage."

"Well, yeah," Rise said awkwardly. "It did, at least for me, but I probably wouldn't have been able to if senpai and the others hadn't been there for me, you know? It's good to know that you have friends who'll accept you for who you are."

"I hear that," Kanji said. "Damn, but just thinking of the way my Shadow acted gives me the willies."

"Wait," Akihiko interjected suddenly. "You said _all _of your friends earned their Personas by accepting their Shadows. What about _him_?" The boxing captain jabbed a finger at Teddie, who looked back as if not quite understanding why the question had to be asked.

"Oh, Teddie had a Shadow, too," Chie answered. "Actually that was probably our most exhausting fight yet, because we'd all more or less got our butts kicked by Rise's Shadow right before that. I don't really remember how we managed to win that one."

"Ugh, I was sore for a whole week after that fight," Yosuke said with a wince, rubbing at his inner arm. Then he reached over and gave Teddie a sharp knock to the head. "Your Shadow was a real pain in the ass, you know that?"

Teddie's response was to whistle innocently. But Ikutsuki seemed intrigued.

"A Shadow… developing a Shadow of its own?" he mused aloud. "Quite remarkable. If a Persona is the manifestation of the inner self, accepted and tamed by its ego, then… but that makes sense, actually. I've been pondering the possibility of non-human creatures developing the potential for some time. In theory, any creature capable of developing an ego should do be able to control a Persona — dogs, cats, robots, you name it!"

At the word "robots" the Investigation Team shared a look during which Narukami knew the same person was on all of their minds: Labrys, the Fifth Generation Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon. And now that they had all been reminded of her, they all remembered where she had been during these intervening years… asleep in a box somewhere. Narukami caught a significant look from Naoto, a look that said plainly that she had something to tell him on that point later. Preferably in private.

"Then if Teddie can use a Persona, he's not really a Shadow anymore, is he?" Yukari asked, cutting through everyone's contemplation. "I mean, he might have started out as one, but isn't he more or less human now?"

"Yukari-chan…!" said Teddie, clearly touched.

"That's how we think of 'im," Yosuke said. "Hell, by the time he finally remembered he was a Shadow, the rest of us really just didn't give a damn anymore. He's one of us, and that's that all we care about."

Mitsuru nodded in understanding. "In that case, I feel I must apologize for Akihiko's earlier rashness…"

"Oh, no sweat, he already owned up," Kanji said with a shrug. "I mean, I kinda get why you guys'd react like that. One thing I'm wonderin', though. How'd you guys _find _us so easy?"

In truth, Kanji had voiced a question that was on the Investigation Team's mind since they'd met S.E.E.S. outside of Tartarus. Narukami looked to Mitsuru, who answered in the same dignified tone she'd spoken with since their first meeting. Her upper-class status was almost painfully obvious in her manner of speech; Narukami though he had some inkling as to why Yukari displayed that undercurrent of hostility in her presence.

"During the Dark Hour, I take it on myself as the only support member to keep up an active scan for Shadows that appear outside of Tartarus," she said. "Although, that rarely happens, and this is the first time I've actually sensed one in the city. My Persona's scanning abilities are somewhat lacking. Fortunately, the 'Shadow' I was detecting was actually your friend Teddie here. It was a relief to discover that there had been no threat at all. Past incidents with roaming Shadows have ended with civilian casualties, and we all wish to avoid that."

"I see," Naoto said. Her eyes lingered on Akihiko, who seemed to remember something unpleasant at Mitsuru's words. "So because Shadows do not emerge from the tower, Teddie stood out like a torch in the night. I had a feeling your meeting us was no coincidence. But that brings us to another question… the tower…"

Naoto had, Narukami knew, done more with this than simply ask for information they needed: by seizing this opportunity to change the subject, he had hopefully diverted attention away from the story of their adventure in Inaba, which meant they could skate over the details more easily. Narukami knew it was dangerous to tell them even this much of what had really happened, but he and Naoto didn't want to risk giving S.E.E.S. faulty information about the Shadows by making up a bogus cover story. It was safer for everyone involved to be as honest as possible where Shadows were concerned; there was no telling what might come up while they worked with S.E.E.S., after all.

"Ah, yes, and so we come to it: Tartarus," Ikutsuki said in a businesslike manner. "The tower infested with Shadows, which Gekkoukan High School transforms into during the Dark Hour. In truth we know very little about the structure — why it appears or what purpose it serves — save that it's the most likely place to find any sort of clue about why the Dark Hour exists or, if we're fortunate, how the put an end to the Dark Hour for good."

"Unfortunately," Mitsuru spoke up, "with just myself, Akihiko, and Takeba here, we haven't been able to mount a full-scale exploration of the Tower. So we have been, more or less, stuck on the defensive for the past few years. This is the main reason I had hoped to speak with all of you…"

Mitsuru stood up. Naoto and Narukami looked at each other, and then Narukami looked briefly from one teammate to the next. They all understood what was coming; they'd planned for it, after all. Mitsuru followed this silent interaction with her own eyes and said, "Yes, it's as you've already guessed. I wanted to ask you for your assistance. Yu-san, all of you… will you lend us your strength?"

They intended to join anyway, but it was probably best not to seem overeager. Naoto, undoubtedly in the spirit of appearing the skeptic, spoke first: "Before we commit to anything, I wish to know more about the situation here in the city. What precisely causes Apathy Syndrome?"

Yukari leaned forward, an unhappy look on her face. "We're not sure exactly why it happens, when there aren't any Shadows outside of Tartarus most nights," she said. "All we know for sure is that the Shadows attack anyone outside a coffin during the Dark Hour. It doesn't happen that often, but…"

"What few victims there are," Ikutsuki said sadly, "are left in a vegetative state, unable to speak, move, or eat on their own. They are as pitiable as any coma patient, if not more so, and equally as incapable of caring for themselves. That is why the Shadows must be defeated: to prevent more victims from falling prey to the illness, and to avoid the more critical problems that might occur if the Apathy Syndrome became too widespread…"

"I get saving people, but whaddaya mean by that last part?" Kanji asked. It was not Mitsuru, but Naoto who answered.

"In the worst-case scenario," the detective said seriously, "the entire country could suffer an economic collapse, if too many people were incapacitated by the illness. For every victim, there is someone — probably multiple people — who must care for them, on top of the victims themselves, who are incapable of contributing to society. And obviously there is the problem of public concern. If Apathy Syndrome becomes a large problem, people will start to worry and eventually panic…"

_Just like when the fog set in over the winter,_ Narukami recalled. It had been subtle at first, but as Christmas Eve had drawn closer, people had gotten more and more anxious and scared. There had been doomsayers running around in gasmasks shouting about how the fog was poison, some families had moved out of town altogether…

"That about covers it," Akihiko said. "We're here to keep the shit from hitting the fan. Fortunately, the Shadows don't seem to be that active yet, but you never know if that might change."

Naoto said, "Indeed," but it was the look on her face as she said it that clued Narukami in to what she was really thinking. Narukami closed his eyes, trying to remember everything he'd heard about Apathy Syndrome from the gossip that had reached his ears in 2009. It had been a distant problem, so he hadn't paid it too much attention, but… he'd been seeing it on the news more and more often as the year rolled on. Clearly the Shadows _would _become more active in coming months. He wondered what would change to cause the outbreak…

Opening his eyes, Narukami said: "I can't speak for everyone, but for my part… I can see that this is a problem that can't be ignored. If my friends are willing, then so am I."

"Likewise," Naoto said. "This is a matter of life and death for more than just a few victims. The scope of our previous case pales in comparison."

Kanji punched his palm with his fist. "Heh, you don't even need to ask, senpai. I'm always willing to kick a bit o' Shadow ass!"

"Same," Yosuke said.

"Yeah," Chie said. "I mean, we have the power to protect everyone, right? It'd be a waste not to use it."

Yukiko nodded. "I agree. Let's all do our best to get the bottom of things, like last time."

Rise looked around and smiled. "It'll be just like old times. I know it wasn't all fun and games, but to be honest I kind of missed helping you guys out."

"Ah, yes…" Naoto said with a glance toward the teen idol. "Kirijo-san, you said your Persona has the ability to detect Shadows, like Rise's?"

"It's more battle-oriented than support, but yes," Mitsuru replied. Then she looked at Rise. "Wait, am I to understand that you have the same power?"

"Detection and analysis are Kouzeon's specialty," Rise said brightly. "I'm afraid I'm no good in a fight, though… I mostly keep my distance and tell the others where the sweet spots are."

"You hear that, Mitsuru?" Akihiko said, smirking. "Sounds like she can take your place. You can get back into the action, give your sword-arm a real workout for a change."

"Yes, that seems to be the case," Mitsuru said, sounding almost as though this were an unexpected gift and too good to be true. "You can do this with no specialized equipment, then?"

"I've never had to use anything except my Persona," Rise said. "I can sense weaknesses, tell where the Shadows are, and talk to the others telepathically. It's not as glorious as being in the middle of it, bashing Shadow brains in with a folding chair, but—"

"Sorry, I know that was important," Yukari cut in awkwardly. "But… _who_ bashes Shadow brains in with a folding chair?"

"That'd be me," Kanji said proudly, folding his arms over his chest. Chie shook her head ruefully and Yosuke chuckled a bit.

"Nice," Akihiko smirked. "A real man's weapon, the chair. You a wrestler?"

"Nah," Kanji said. "But I wouldn't mind givin' it a shot sometime. Not like any school I've heard of has a wrestling club, though."

"Speaking of school," Ikutsuki cut in with the faint air of one trying to get the conversation back on track. "If you do join us, I'm afraid you'll have to live here in the dorm. I can handle the arrangements and… financial concerns, of course. You'll all be offered a full scholarship for Gekkoukan High as compensation for your services. It's a first-rate school, so I'm sure your families won't have a problem with the arrangement."

"Ah… yeah… families… um, about that…" Yosuke mumbled awkwardly, glancing up at Naoto and Narukami as if begging them to take that subject off his shoulders. The others seemed equally distressed in that moment, and Naoto adjusted her hat, the first slight tell of discomfort she'd shown that night. Narukami took the cue in her place.

"We don't actually have any families," he said. "All of us ran away from home years ago, for some reason or another, although it wasn't until the murder case that we all banded together."

"We gave up our identities to escape lives we have no wish to return to," Naoto said softly, all signs of discomfort gone. "I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we have no access to documentation and no academic records to speak of. Will we still be able to attend school…?"

"Do we have to?" Kanji grumbled. "Can't we just, y'know, live in the dorm?"

"Motion seconded!" Yosuke said, raising his hand as if voting.

"Most certainly not," Mitsuru said in a tone that brooked no argument. "But, all of you are wearing what I took to be school uniforms..."

"These were salvaged during our time in Inaba," Naoto lied smoothly. "We thought it best to look like we attended the local school, Yasogami High, so that we wouldn't stick out. Inaba is a small town, so new faces are more memorable to the people there."

"Hm... yes, I suppose that makes sense," Mitsuru said. "Mr. Chairman?"

"Hm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Lack of identification does pose a problem, but I should be able to pull the necessary strings in time for the first semester in April. You'll each have to take an entrance exam, but with some tutoring you should pass well enough to enroll. Is that agreeable for you all?"

Narukami had to keep his relief from showing on his face as the others gave their own "Yeps" and "Yeahs" and "I guesses." It seemed they had bought it, or at least weren't suspicious enough to press them for answers immediately. They would still have to meet up later, away from the dorm, to get their individual stories straightened out… but it looked like they were in.

"In that case… welcome aboard!" Yukari said smilingly. She was looking at Yukiko as she said it, who smiled back. Narukami wondered if this was the start of a beautiful friendship, or perhaps if Yukari was just happy to have a girl her own age and temperament join the team. Between Akihiko and Mitsuru, it didn't seem like Yukari was entirely comfortable with S.E.E.S. just yet.

"I welcome you as well… and, thank you," Mitsuru said. "With all of you on our side, I have a feeling things will go much more smoothly from this point forward."

"No kidding," Akihiko said, grinning with excitement. "With this many people, we can finally take the fight to the Shadows."

"Indeed, but I think that subject will keep until another night," Ikutsuki said, his eyes moving to Narukami… who realized he was slumping with fatigue. "The Dark Hour is quite taxing, so I'm sure you all must be tired. Yukari and Akihiko will show you all to your rooms and you can get some rest for now. We can continue this discussion another time. I'll make the necessary arrangements with the school… and I'll have an Evoker made for each of you." The Chairman stood up and grinned widely. "And allow me to welcome you all to the squad! I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership, don't you?"

And at that, everything froze. It had been so long since Yu Narukami had last experienced this sensation that for a moment he almost panicked.

A flash of light at the back of his mind was all it took, though. Narukami knew what this was, and then as if in confirmation, a single tarot card faded into his mind's eye. It was a card bearing the image of a man with a sack slung over his shoulder on a stick, and the number zero at the bottom.

A familiar, mysterious voice echoed through his mind:

_Thou art I… and I am thou._

_Thou hast established a new bond._

_It brings thee closer to the Universe…_

_Thou shalt have our blessing when assuming the mask of the Fool Arcana…_

Narukami would have blinked in surprise, had his eyelids been capable of movement at that point — but as his perception of time had frozen, so had his body. This was a Social Link, but hadn't he already unlocked the full potential of the Fool Arcana through his bond with the Investigation Team…? And the wording was different, for some reason…

His first instinct was to speak to Igor as soon as possible. Then he realized he had no idea how to enter the Velvet Room from here.

And then time rolled on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, for only Narukami was aware of the Social Links that came with his "wild card" power. He remembered the way his friends had reacted when they had learned he had been keeping the Velvet Room secret from them… maybe it was time he came clean about Social Links, too…

Narukami's feet felt leaden as he followed the others out of the command room, barely paying attention to the random chatter as he followed Akihiko, Yosuke, Teddie, and Kanji down the steps. He was just thinking he would pass out the moment he set eyes on a bed when an indignant female yell sounded from the third floor landing, a few steps behind him, prompting him to look back:

"Where do you think _you're _going? The boys' rooms are on the _second _floor."

Narukami blinked and then had to hold back a laugh at the scene unfolding behind him, for naturally Naoto had made to follow Chie, Yukiko, and Rise down the third-floor hallway. Naoto now stood frozen like a deer in headlights with that flustered, wide-eyed look, in the face of Yukari's withering expression and Mitsuru's own stern, narrow-eyed gaze.

"Oh — I'm — that is, I —" Naoto stammered, her words lost amidst a peal of giggles from Yukiko and a more good-natured laugh from Rise.

"Naoto-kun is a _girl_, actually," Chie said, biting her own lip to prevent herself from laughing. At this bald statement Naoto blushed and pulled the brim of her hat over her eyes. Mitsuru and Yukari both looked at Naoto with wide eyes.

"R-Really?!" Yukari exclaimed. "Seriously? Where are you hiding your — er, sorry, forget I said anything," she added sheepishly. "A-anyway, every room but these two are vacant, so just pick one out and you're good to go…"

Narukami chuckled quietly to himself as he resumed his march down the stairs. Yosuke was not being quite so tactful as that; he was laughing openly and telling Kanji he'd been waiting for that to happen. Akihiko had a mildly interested look on his face, but shrugged and just kept walking.

Teddie then said that Naoto actually had a "bear-y" large bosom tucked beneath that shirt of hers, and everyone groaned. Whatever might have been said or done after that point was lost to Narukami, as his fatigue claimed him the instant he sat down on his bed and he would not awake until well past noon the next day.

* * *

**Status Report:  
- **Yu Narukami has established the **S.E.E.S.** Social Link of the **Fool** Arcana.

**Author's Note:** This was a harder chapter to write than I thought it would be, and a longer one. And truth be told I'm not one hundred percent happy with it. Perhaps I'll fiddle with it a bit later on, but in the interest of posting at least one story update before my week off ends, I'm going to upload this one as-is for the time being. As always, your feedback is appreciated, especially constructive criticism.


	6. V: The Mystery of Minato Arisato

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~V~  
"The Mystery of Minato Arisato"**

* * *

When Narukami rolled out of bed the following afternoon, his head was still throbbing dully where he had "shot" himself with the Evoker. He sat up and slumped a bit on the side of his bed — which was in fact an ordinary bed and not a futon, something that Yu found distinctly disconcerting after so many years of sleeping on the latter. His first act upon rubbing the sand out of his eyes was to glance at the wall across from where he sat. That was where he _usually _kept his calendar; Narukami was the sort of person who planned his daily to-do's far in advance, a habit that had only intensified with a year of constantly watching weather reports and making plans to balance school, friends, and _saving the goddamn world._

That last part always boggled his mind when he thought about it. While the whole situation with Personas and Shadows had been perilous and surreal like you wouldn't believe, they had all seen it as… just a highly-supernatural country town murder case. Until they had tracked down Adachi and encountered Ameno-sagiri, that is. And then the events that followed, culminating in the Investigation Team's final clash with a being who claimed to be a god… who claimed to be Izanami, no less…

There wasn't really any other way to say it, Narukami knew, although it made him feel slightly big-headed to just think it straight out: the Investigation Team had saved the world. From the magnitude of the Apathy Syndrome epidemic as Narukami remembered it, S.E.E.S. had likely done the same, possibly even more. And the world would never know about either team's struggles…

The thought was slightly depressing, but as it occurred Narukami realized he was just staring at a blank wall. Out of sheer automatic habit, he had forgotten for a moment where he'd fallen asleep. This was a room in Gekkoukan High School's Iwatodai Dorm, three years in the past. He hadn't even found himself any possessions to unpack, let alone had time to unpack them, so naturally there wasn't a calendar in the room yet. Narukami decided to change tack, and snatched his wallet up off the bedside table. He sifted through it, frowning. He was, fortunately, the kind of guy who liked to keep most of his cash on his person. His bank account had amassed a healthy balance, though; living in Inaba had instilled in Narukami a bit of a hardcore work ethic, so he had continued to take part time positions after returning to Tokyo. Still, he only had about two hundred thou—

…Wait.

Suddenly realizing something rather important, Narukami sifted through his bills and the small smattering of coins at the bottom of the wallet more carefully. In the end he withdrew one five-thousand-yen bill and a few coins but nothing else. These were dated later than 2009. The rest were all from earlier years, so while there were likely bills with matching serial numbers and the like somewhere out there in this timeline, the odds of that becoming a problem were slim.

Narukami slipped the "money from the future" into the wallet's secondary pocket and then set the wallet back down on the table. He had a little under two hundred thousand yen to work with, which would be enough to purchase all of the essentials for his team in this time, including weapons. But now another problem occurred to him: without a metalworking enthusiast like Deidara around, how were they to acquire weapons and armor?

Narukami decided it wasn't likely an issue. This team was backed by the Kirijo Group, after all. They weren't flying with zero support the way the Investigation Team had. Still, Narukami decided he'd at least keep up with Tanaka's Amazing Commodities on Sundays as per usual. He'd gotten a couple of interesting odds and ends from that show while living in Inaba, although he'd lost touch with it after returning to the city. Speaking of, what day of the week was it? Hell, what day of the _month _was it? He checked his phone, frowning as he realized it was still displaying the date they had come from in 2012. Well, it was too late in the day for Tanaka's show no matter what day of the week it happened to be...

Narukami's head gave a particularly nasty throb. He decided it would be best to stop thinking about things.

He pushed himself off the bed and looked himself over. He'd flat-out crashed in his Tokyo school uniform, only having been cognizant enough of his attire at the time to toss his tie and wallet on the bedside table. The ensemble was now wrinkled and somewhat sweaty around the armpits. Glorious. But he didn't have anything to change into, so he decided just remove the outer coat and make clothes shopping his first priority. He would have to check what the uniform at Gekkoukan for guys was. He vaguely recalled that Akihiko seemed to have been wearing one, but he wasn't sure what parts of that outfit were personal tweaks and which were actually part of the uniform.

There was no toothpaste yet (Narukami mentally jotted down "toiletries" on his internal shopping list) so he couldn't exactly brush his teeth, either. So he just wet his hair down a bit by hand and with a slightly discontented sigh (he never exactly said so, but he took pride in his appearance), he left the room and headed downstairs.

The first thing he saw was Mitsuru Kirijo sitting on the couch in the front lounge with a book. It seemed to be written in French. She was dressed not in the uniform of last night, but in a pricey-looking black peacoat, along with a white scarf and pants. The redhead looked up as Narukami neared and moved a small red ribbon into place before setting the novel down on the coffee table — evidently she not only had expensive taste in clothes, but expensive taste in bookmarks as well.

"Good afternoon, Yu-san. Normally I would frown on sleeping in while there are important matters to attend to, but… how do you feel?"

"A bit groggy, to be honest," Narukami admitted. "And my head still hurts a bit."

"The Chairman thought that might be the case," Mitsuru said apologetically. "You and your friends have been what is termed 'natural' Persona-users for some time now, even if only in that other world. Forcing your Personas to manifest with mechanical aid will take some getting used to."

Neither of the two had an Evoker on hand, so Narukami just cast a slightly sour look at nothing in particular. "Will I ever be able to summon without one of those things…?"

"In theory, one with sufficient practice, willpower, and a strong enough ego can potentially summon a Persona without technological aide, even outside of the Dark Hour," Mitsuru said (or recited, almost). "Since you have done so in that other world, it might take you less time to master this than it would for us… or at least, that is what the Chairman believes. I must admit, Yu-san, you and your group are something of an anomaly to us. The Chairman and I both are quite interested in what you might bring to the table."

A slight shuffling sound drew Narukami's attention to the area behind the reception desk, where Naoto had been reading something at a desktop computer. She had been so quiet tucked away in that obscure corner that Narukami hadn't noticed her presence at all.

"Senpai," Naoto called. "I found something that I'd like to show you."

"I'll be there in a sec," Narukami replied. When he turned back to Mitsuru, however, she was holding out a small envelope for him.

"This is from the Chairman, to help you get settled in," Mitsuru said. Narukami took the envelope and opened it; two five thousand yen bills were inside. "Don't worry about school uniforms or equipment for our club activities just yet. The Chairman will be providing the former when the school year begins — which is on April 7th, for your information. I'll have Akihiko introduce you to our supplier when your Evokers are completed."

"Got it, and thanks," Narukami said. Mitsuru nodded in acknowledgment and picked up the book, slipping the ribbon-bookmark out as she continued reading where she'd left off. Narukami's eyes lingered on the cover for a bit — it looked like it might be a mystery novel — and before he made a move to join Naoto behind the reception desk he decided it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Is it any good?"

"Hm?" Mitsuru hummed absently, looking up. "Oh, yes. It's fantastic. The characters are all very well-developed and the writing is _tres bien_. I thought the turning point two chapters ago was a bit contrived, however." An odd look passed over Mitsuru's face, as though she were surprised to have said so much on the subject. "Do you read often?" she asked.

"All the time," Narukami said. That had been another thing he'd gained during his year in Inaba: a love of literature. He hadn't read much while living in Tokyo, but the lack of entertainment at hand out in the country had required him to try out one or two new things. Reading and fishing had surprisingly become favorite passtimes of his. There was something about spending a year in a simpler place that taught one to enjoy the simpler things in life.

"In that case, if you enjoy a good mystery, I recommend this one," Mitsuru said. "This is actually assigned reading for class, however. I wasn't expecting to be so absorbed by it."

"Is there a Japanese, or at least an English version?" Narukami asked. "My French isn't so hot."

"I believe it was printed in both languages," Mitsuru said thoughtfully. Then, with a puzzled look: "When did you have a chance to learn any French at all? Or English, for that matter? I thought you said you hadn't attended school."

"Ah — independent study," Narukami answered, internally kicking himself for the slip. It was times like this that he was immensely grateful for his own innate calmness, as the sudden question hadn't outwardly rattled him. "I managed to get my hands on a few of those foreign language lesson CDs when I was younger. Didn't have much to do at the time, so I figured it might be interesting. Never got into French, though. Something about the language just didn't do it for me."

This last, he recalled, was actually his own brief experience with French class in Tokyo. He'd transferred to Inaba for the following year, though, so he'd had a fine excuse not to continue the class: Yasogami High simply didn't teach it.

"I see," Mitsuru said, smiling. "Well, if you've shown such initiative on your own time, you shouldn't have much trouble acclimating to student life, at least. Have you studied any other subjects independently…?"

"Oh… a little of this, a little of that," Narukami said vaguely. He hoped he could use this as an excuse for any suspicions his academic performance might raise about their cover story…

"_C'est magnifique,_" Mitsuru said. "While we're on the subject, the Chairman says he'll be overseeing your entrance examinations next week. They shouldn't take long, but I've taken the liberty of ordering each of you a set of textbooks to study from. They should be delivered to your dorms by tomorrow evening."

"I appreciate it," Narukami said sincerely. "Anyway, I need to go get some decent clothes. I'm a bit… unkept… right now."

As he said it he became suddenly conscious of the fact that he was dressed in a wrinkled undershirt and dusty dress-pants... while speaking to a voluptuous rich girl in designer clothes, no less. He _did _already have a girlfriend, of course, so he wasn't exactly looking to impress Mitsuru, but still. It made him feel inadequate.

"It's understandable," Mitsuru said, returning her eyes to her book. "It was an eventful night for all of us. Perhaps we can speak more later — I'm curious about what sort of books you read. Mine are mostly from the Kirijo family's private library; I've been meaning to branch out for some time now."

"Sure thing, we can talk lit whenever," Narukami replied, grinning easily as he turned around to go see what Naoto wanted. He was relieved, to be honest — he'd thought a rich girl like Mitsuru Kirijo would be a bit uptight about stuff like this, but she was pretty chill about it. Probably just because she understood the circumstances, but still…

It took Narukami a moment to realize that he had apparently frozen mid-step. And so had the world around him: Mitsuru had stopped in perfect three-dimensional freeze-frame while turning a page. And then that voice answered his question before his brain could even formulate one:

_Thou art I… and I am thou._

_Thou hast established a new bond._

_It brings thee closer to the Universe…_

_Thou shalt have our blessing when assuming the mask of the Empress Arcana…_

The voice faded, time resumed, and Narukami continued his easy stroll toward Naoto and the reception desk computer. He felt oddly windswept, not to mention blindsided. It was always disconcerting when a Social Link snuck up on him like that.

Naoto had waited patiently by the computer while Narukami finished his conversation with Mitsuru. The first thing Narukami noticed was that she had evidently gone clothes-shopping already. The detective was clad in something resembling her usual day-wear, just as boyish-looking as ever. Narukami had wanted to ask her ever since Golden Week why she had gone back to binding her breasts, concerned that her issues with her gender and body had intensified again in the time since he had departed Inaba… but he didn't ask, because really, how does a _guy _bring something like that up without sounding like a creep? Instead he just said:

"What's up, Naoto?"

The detective tapped her finger lightly on the mouse without actually clicking it, giving Narukami a subtle-yet-significant look. "I've just been doing some research into events that might relate to this case, such as the Apathy Syndrome cases themselves and the 'explosion' back in '99," she said, but when Narukami stepped into view of the monitor, his eyes were drawn not to the article in the browser window… but to the place where Naoto had left the cursor.

The mouse arrow hovered over the time at the bottom of the screen, which was about half-past one o' clock now, but more importantly, hovering the mouse over the clock displayed a tool-tip with the date on it. Today was _Sunday, __March 8__th__, 2009_, according to this computer. Narukami grinned and nodded slightly in thanks to the detective, and she nodded back, sliding the mouse over to remove the tool-tip from the screen.

_Trust Naoto to be both thoughtful _and _subtle,_ Narukami thought. His eyes moved to the article, which in fact was an old newspaper clipping scan about the incident in 1999.

"There are some pretty wild conspiracy theories about the incident," Naoto explained without any further reference to the day's date. "Most of them, as I recall from previous research, were propagated by the Kirijo Group's competitors, so the waters are quite muddy on this topic. But I discovered something interesting while looking over some of the articles from the time of the incident…"

She moved to the mouse over the article, indicating a name: _Minato Arisato_.

Naoto remained silent as Narukami took in the contents of the article. Apparently a young boy by this name had been orphaned, his parents both killed in the incident while on the Moonlight Bridge. The article only mentioned this in passing, however. Narukami looked back to Naoto, quirking an eyebrow to prompt her to explain her point.

"Minato Arisato would show up in the newspapers again," murmured Naoto quietly. "Specifically, in an obituary, over a decade later. His death was written off as the result of a mysterious illness, and he was greatly mourned by many in the months that followed. He was, or… will be, considering the timing… a popular boy who attended Gekkoukan High School starting this upcoming April semester. By all accounts, he was a loyal friend and quite the academic achiever besides. Thinking back, the way people spoke of him when my grandfather took that case… he sounded somewhat like you. Quiet, unshakably calm, always willing to lend an ear and help his friends through their troubles. And something of an unintentional ladies' man, considering how many of the girls we spoke to seemed to have been in love with him."

Naoto sent an almost teasing sort of shrewd look at Narukami then, who knew what she was getting at: Narukami had accidentally won over many a girl's heart during his time in Inaba. He remembered several occasions on which he had been forced to tactfully deflect what might as well have been point-blank confessions from his female friends, several of whom were companions on the Investigation Team besides. He still didn't quite understand how he'd managed to do so without souring any of those relationships badly enough to damage the corresponding Social Links…

But he brushed that thought aside and focused on the important point. "What case?"

"Some months after Arisato-san passed away," Naoto continued in a low voice, "a French boy — who had been a foreign transfer student at Gekkoukan during the same year, as well as a close friend of Arisato-san — contacted my grandfather over the phone and hired him to investigate the death of this boy, evidently distraught and wanting to know the truth. His name was… Andre Laurent Jean Geraux, if memory serves, although he invited grandfather to call him by the nickname 'Bebe.' Grandfather took the case and found just enough oddity surrounding the boy's death to pursue it, but never dug up anything of substance. He insists on pursuing the case to this day — in our own time, I mean. I am ashamed to admit that I dismissed it as a lost cause prematurely."

"So apart from the sudden, unexplained death," Narukami asked, "what's so interesting about this Minato guy?"

"For one thing, his wasn't the only death attributed to 'sudden illness' during that school year," murmured Naoto. "But I'd rather not discuss that while Kirijo-san is so close by… more to the point, Arisato-san participated in a number of extracurricular activities that year. Kendo… Music Club… Fashion Club, oddly enough, where he apparently befriended the transfer student in question… and most importantly, he participated in a small school club that my grandfather never could learn much about, a group called S.E.E.S…"

Narukami's eyes widened. "So you think his death has something to do with Apathy Syndrome, or the Shadows."

Naoto nodded. "More than that… I have a hunch he may have been that 'previous guest' of the Velvet Room that your bizarre benefactor alluded to."

Narukami gave a start. He had momentarily forgotten that his friends had seen the Velvet Room, let alone that Igor had dropped such a hint while they were there. "What makes you say so?"

"I have no evidence as yet," Naoto said. "But as I said… the stories that his friends told my grandfather while I was assisting on that case painted a picture that resembles you in a lot of ways, senpai." As Narukami mulled this over, not quite understanding her meaning, Naoto sighed and said, "In any case, it's just speculation at this point. The important thing is that we now have some modicum of foresight. Minato Arisato will eventually become a part of S.E.E.S., and on the night of Graduation Day next year, he will pass away of unknown causes. To be honest, I'm unsure what to do with such information… part of me wants to prevent it, but a more practical side of me thinks it would be imprudent to proceed without knowing the how and why behind it all."

"…You said there was someone else who died? Or, who… dies?" Narukami inquired quietly.

Naoto didn't answer directly, but simply said, "Oh, and the others wanted us all to meet for dinner this evening at that ramen bar we went to last time we were in Iwatodai. Hagakure, I believe it was called? Yukiko suggested that we take the opportunity to talk things over there, although I suspect she simply wants to enjoy the ramen that Teddie unlawfully stole from her when we were last there."

Narukami snorted in amusement, the memory still one of his fondest on days when he was in the mood for a good laugh. On that occasion, Teddie had been in his "costume" as well. They had left Teddie to find his own way back to Inaba after that — which Teddie did, although he'd never explained how and had gotten a strangely hollow look in his eyes on the occasion when Narukami had asked.

"Sure thing, I'll be there," he said. He knew this was Naoto's way of saying that the discussion was closed until the Investigation Team could meet up away from the dorm's other inhabitants and confer in private. Perhaps Hagakure could serve as a temporary "special headquarters" while they were here…

Narukami bid farewell to Naoto with a nod, which Naoto returned, and departed the dormitory without further comment. His headache was subsiding a bit now, but he decided his first stop would be the pharmacy anyway. He had a feeling the team would need a good supply of aspirin for when they all tried out their Evokers for the first time.

He hesitated briefly outside the door, thinking to go back inside and ask Mitsuru where he could pick some up, but then he remembered seeing a drug store in Paulownia Mall when they'd gone to Club Escapade that time…

Narukami let out another snort of amusement. _That _had been an interesting experience, to say the least.

* * *

**Status Report:  
**- Yu Narukami has established the **Mitsuru Kirijo** Social Link of the** Empress** Arcana.**  
**

**Author's Note:** Just a short chapter this time. I've been suffering some writer's block as of late, so I didn't want to leave this story hanging any longer.

And no, Minato Arisato is not Naoto Shirogane's long-lost cousin, brother, _or _next-door-neighbor's-pet-hamster's-former-owner. Literally the only similarity between them is that they both have blue hair. My reasoning is that Minato is said to have lived in a lot of different places over the years, suggesting he was shunted from one foster family to another as time passed. Not exactly something that would have happened had he a loving detective grandfather and a lonely cousin who would have enjoyed having another family member in the house. I know people feel the need to connect the two games more deeply and explain away things like how Minato got the money for Gekkoukan, but I always felt the Naoto-is-related-to-Minato fanon subplot was jumping the shark just a little bit.


	7. VI: The Not-So-Secret Meeting

**Disclaimer:** _Shin Megami Tensei _and the _Persona_ series belong to Atlus, not to the Heartless Wanderer. All related characters and concepts are the intellectual property of said company. The Heartless Wanderer is merely an Internet nerd who writes works of fanfiction in his rather scarce spare time and happens to be a on a bit of a _Persona_ kick at the moment. He claims ownership only of the fan-work itself and nothing else.

* * *

**~VI~  
"The Not-So-Secret Meeting"**

* * *

When Yu Narukami left his room for the second time that day, he was much better-dressed, and his head wasn't throbbing quite as badly. Paulownia Mall had turned out to be the place for pretty much everything he'd needed: he'd gotten a good supply of headache meds from the pharmacy and then paid a visit to the clothing store for a much-needed replacement wardrobe. This had essentially amounted to him re-buying all of the clothes he normally wore, although he'd had to settle for a few reasonable facsimiles on account of not all of it having been made yet.

So when Yu Narukami left his room for the second time that day, he looked pretty much like he always did on an off-day. He was even wearing the same outfit he often had on Sundays in Inaba. As he walked down the stairs that evening, he was thus struck by a certain sense of nostalgia. This would be the first of many precious days to rest and enjoy the life he risked on a regular basis — as it had been in Inaba, so it would be in Iwatodai.

Well, he still had some time before his Evoker arrived and he would be expected to spend his midnights fighting Shadows, but he wasn't about to take it for granted just because he had a particularly long "weekend" ahead of him. He still had some time before he had to meet up with the others at Hagakure, so he figured he'd re-acquaint himself with the shops at the strip mall. Now that he thought about it, wasn't there a used book store next to the burger place? He decided to check it out — they might even have the book Mitsuru had recommended…

When he got downstairs, he found that Mitsuru was gone — but at the table, alternating between a bowl of instant noodles and a text message on her cell phone, was Yukari Takeba. She looked a bit tired, but cheerful enough. Narukami was going to pass by without disturbing her, but she looked up as he passed.

"Oh, hi, Yu-san," she greeted him with a smile. "Goin' somewhere?"

"Uh-huh. Promised to meet the others at the ramen bar," Narukami said. "We went there last time we were at Port Island. Good stuff."

"Yeah, Hagakure's ramen is awesome," Yukari said wistfully, glancing down at her noodle bowl. "I'd love to have some, but I went over budget at the movies with my friends last weekend. Gotta save up."

"I know what that's like," Narukami said easily. "Back in Inaba I used to take jobs doing things like folding envelopes and translating stuff in my spare time. The money was alright, but it was pretty tedious and the pay wasn't enough to really binge on anything, y'know?"

"Heh, makes me feel kinda thankful that I still get an allowance…" Yukari said. She started at an easy laugh, but trailed off with a frown. Her eyes became a bit distant. Narukami's own smiled faded a bit.

"Something on your mind?" he asked.

Yukari's smile came back, but it was definitely a bit forced. "It's nothin'. Have fun with your friends, 'kay? Oh, and if you want some _really _good ramen, ask for the 'Hagakure Bowl.' That place has a secret menu. It's a bit pricier than the regular stuff, but trust me, you have to try it at least once."

Narukami blinked. Secret menu? A vague memory drifted into his mind from nearly a year ago, the voice of Rise, sounding surprised and put-out: _The Hagakure Bowl is a regular menu item now?_ Oh, so this is what she'd been talking about…

"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind," Narukami said, waving goodbye and heading for the door. Probably not for tonight, of course… if the Hagakure Bowl was that good, it was probably better to save it for a day when he wasn't supposed to be concentrating on anything. As the debacle with Yukiko's fried tofu had proven, both he and Yosuke could get rather distracted by the taste of good food…

**- V -**

"Yo, partner! What kept ya?" Yosuke asked jokingly before slurping down another mouthful of noodles. When his mouth was free again, he said, "Hey, another one for my friend here!" to the cook, who acknowledged the order and continued about his business.

Narukami slid into a seat at the ramen bar between Yosuke and Naoto, looking around at his friends and returning their greetings. He set a small plastic bag on the table next to him — the book he'd been looking for had in fact been there, though this was the only remaining copy. The old man in charge of the store had been a little odd, though; he seemed to have been under the impression that he was a deli cashier until his wife had interjected to remind him that the store sold books, not ham.

From the looks of it, the other members of the team were all enjoying their ramen (Rise, he noted, had ordered the Hagakure Bowl). This time Teddie'd had the sense not to wear his "costume" in the middle of the restaurant, for which they were all grateful, and this time, from the pleased look on Yukiko's face and the empty bowl in front of her, the Amagi heiress had actually finished her own ramen. To a man, they had all changed out of their uniforms and into their preferred form of day-wear, although only Yukiko and Rise had taken the opportunity to try a new style. Narukami couldn't get a good look at their outfits while they were still sitting at the bar, but what he could see was pretty fitting. He wondered how many hours the girls had spent trying out clothes and giggling and — oh God, now he was having flashbacks to that time they'd wrangled the boys into going clothes-shopping with them. Best not to think about it further, he decided, or he'd give himself a headache all over again…

Yosuke sighed in contentment, having finished his own second bowl in record time, and then cleared his throat importantly. "Well, now that our leader is here, I say we get this meeting started. Naoto, you said you had some stuff to tell us that'd give an idea of what to expect, yeah?"

"I do, in fact — and more than what we discussed at the dormitory, Yu-senpai," Naoto responded. She cast a look around at the other patrons, but they were too absorbed in their own soup and small talk to take note of a bunch of high-schoolers chatting at the bar. "But it may not all be new to you… did any of you watch the news, or hear the rumors, around the month of January 2010?"

"Huh? The news?" grimaced Yosuke. "Dude, I was still in Tokyo back then, I had better things to do than watch the news."

Yukiko smiled apologetically. "I don't remember the news that far back so well, sorry, Naoto-kun… although…" She frowned, putting her hand to her chin in apparently deep thought. "Now that you mention it, I think I remember hearing a lot of talk around the inn… something about… a cult?"

"Oh, I remember that!" Chie said. "Yeah, I remember 'cause my folks used to talk about how disturbing it was. There was this cult back then that grew in popularity all over Japan and then just sort of _stopped_. But it was never that big a deal in Inaba. A few graffiti incidents and a bunch of flyers in the shopping district that all the store owners just tore down. Wasn't that cult all like... _'the end is nigh'_ and... _'believe and ye shall be saved_'? Kinda freaky how many people bought into it, huh…"

Kanji snorted. "Yeah, I remember that. Caught some dumbass spraying the logo on the back of the shop one night. Don't remember how far up his ass I shoved my foot, but no one tried _that _shit again. What was that group called? …Somethin' about knickers?"

Teddie slurped at a third bowl of ramen, either having nothing to add or simply not paying attention.

"'Nyx,' actually," Narukami muttered, eyes narrowed. "I remember that cult. It was all the rage in Tokyo, at least among people who weren't so well-off."

Yosuke snapped his fingers. "Hey, you're right. Nyxism, yeah. I saw a lot of that. Couple o' my old pals got really into it for some reason." Then he blinked. "Wait, you're saying that this cult was connected to whatever's going on with the Dark Hour, Naoto?"

The detective nodded. "Yes. There are too many odd things surrounding the rise of that cult for it to be entirely coincidence. For example…" Naoto held up one finger. "First, the cult began on Tatsumi Port Island, spreading to Iwatodai shortly thereafter. Its rapid spread within the city itself is telling. It may have been the influence of whatever was causing Apathy Syndrome, but whatever the case, it seemed around that time that more and more people were becoming open to the idea of that the world would come to an end — talking about how society was hopeless, and so on and so forth."

Chie scowled. "Well, yeah, people kinda suck sometimes, but that's no reason to just up and quit, is it?"

Narukami nodded in agreement. Naoto continued: "Second, the cult's rapid spread ended as suddenly as it began, in February — about the same time the cases of Apathy Syndrome stopped happening. And third… most tellingly of all... the apparent leader of the cult, a man who was only ever named as 'Charisma,' spoke in a magazine interview of a power he had received from Nyx, as well as others who 'abused' that same power…"

Rise sucked in a small string of noodle, swallowed quickly, and leaned forward. "You mean — you think he was talking about Personas?"

They stopped talking abruptly then, for the cook approached with Narukami's ramen. The team leader thanked him, and they all remained silent until he had passed out of earshot.

"It makes sense," Narukami said. He blew lightly on the surface of his steaming soup bowl. "If anyone were to take advantage of or try to aggravate any part of this situation, it'd have to be someone who knows about the Dark Hour, and that pretty much narrows it down to people involved in Kirijo's research and other Persona-users. And we know that a person doesn't need to be a saint to control their Shadow; Adachi had a Persona, too. So this cult, or more specifically the person behind it — anything we can figure out about them could be a vital piece of the puzzle."

"So what _do_ we know?" Chie asked, looking to Naoto.

Teddie slurped down another bowl and called for a fifth, either having nothing to add... or still not paying attention.

"About the ones behind the cult, very little," Naoto said, obviously frustrated by that fact. "I remember seeing a picture of the man referred to as 'Charisma,' but his identity and background were never uncovered by the media and he seemed to just up and vanish completely when the cult itself did. My grandfather did, at one point, uncover a connection to one Chidori Yoshino, but when he went to Iwatodai to question her, he found to his surprise that she was an amnesic. She remembered nothing of the past few years of her life, so there was nothing he could learn from her. Apart from that, I only know that the cult's popularity was sparked by an Internet personality operating under the username of 'Jin,' whose identity was never revealed."

Teddie slurped noisily at his bowl. At that moment a man walked into the bar — a gruff-looking man in his late teens, clad in a trenchcoat and a beanie. He plopped down carelessly at the far side of the bar and grunted, "The usual." The Investigation Team couldn't help but glance at him, but he paid them no notice.

"So that sums up everything I can recall about the cult that will spring up sometime around the start of January next year," said Naoto more quietly.

Chie shook her head. "Thinking back, it kinda makes me think of the way Inaba was in December, y'know, when that fog covered the whole town and people were ranting about how it was poisonous and the world was gonna end? I don't wanna think of what would've happened if we hadn't beaten Ameno-sagiri before New Years'…"

The team as a whole (minus Teddie, who was still quite deep in soup), turned as one to look at Chie in surprise. She blinked at the sudden attention, and seemed to shrink in on herself.

"What? _What_? Don't tell me I hit something again…"

"I think you just _might've_," Yosuke said, tapping the counter with an almost uncharacteristically serious look on his face. "That month was pretty much our endgame time limit to solve the case before Izanami's stupid fog turned everyone into Shadows. If, whatever this Dark Hour stuff is, if it all ended — or, er, ends — next January, then January might be the same for S.E.E.S. as December was for us."

Everyone was so fixated on Yosuke's suggestion that none of them noticed the gruff-looking teen's eyes flick toward them in surprise.

"If that's the case, then it's definitely something to go on," Narukami said. "Let's operate under the assumption of a one-year time limit, then." He looked at Naoto. "You mentioned something about mysterious deaths… other than Minato Arisato, that is."

"Who?" Yukiko asked.

Teddie slurped away at his soup, although this time he paused to rub his belly with a slightly uncomfortable look on his face.

"Yes," Naoto said, nodding quietly. "In fact, it's fortunate for us that my grandfather and I took on that particular case, because nearly everything about it could potentially be useful knowledge in our current predicament. To sum it up for the rest of you: in the middle of March 2010, specifically on Graduation Day at the end of his third semester, a second-year student at Gekkoukan High School mysteriously passed away of an unknown illness. The only clues as to the cause are that he was noted on several occasions prior to his death as appearing fatigued, and that he was associated with the school club listed as 'S.E.E.S.' during his second year — this _upcoming _year — of high school. The timing suggests that the cause of death is directly related to the Dark Hour, or possibly to the Dark Hour's disappearance, if we are to assume the Dark Hour _does _end along with that cult."

Yukiko blanched. "Wait, so… this Minato Arisato will join up with us? When? And he's just going to _die_? We can't let that happen, c-can we?"

Rise frowned worriedly. "Can't we do anything to —?!"

"Without knowing how or why he died, at this point, no," Naoto said gravely. "But we may… learn more later. For the moment, let's examine what concrete foresight we can glean from that particular investigation. For starters: we know that Minato Arisato first transferred into Gekkoukan at the start of the first semester. This April, in other words, when we'll be starting up there ourselves. We can perhaps look into the matter then. Grandfather's investigation into that case also gives us something else: the identities of the students who would participate in the club during the year that followed."

Rise beamed. "So we know ahead of time who's gonna become a Persona-user! Apart from the ones we met during Golden Week, that is!"

The gruff teen in the beanie got his ramen then, and began to eat… quietly. His eyes remained facing forward.

Narukami nodded. "That could be handy to know, yeah. What do you remember about it, Naoto?"

The detective crossed her arms over her tight-bound chest, closing her eyes. "Apart from ourselves, Kirijo-san, Sanada-san, and Takeba-san," she said slowly, "I recall several others. One Junpei Iori joined the club shortly after Arisato transferred to the school; all accounts speak of the two being on good terms during school hours, with Arisato often whispering answers to Iori when he neglected to pay attention in class."

Narukami and Yosuke shared a look, Narukami's amused and Yosuke's sheepish.

"During the following months, others joined," Naoto said. "One of the Persona-users we met during Golden Week, Aigis-san, transferred into Gekkoukan after summer vacation… an orphaned middle-school student by the name of Ken Amada —" (The gruff man abruptly stopped eating for a moment) "— started living in the dorms, which is odd enough an occurrence even when you _aren't _aware of Personas or Shadows. Finally, a senior named Shinjiro Aragaki took up residence in the dormitory after a long absence some time afterward, though he was rarely seen in class that year…"

Naoto opened her eyes, frowning. "That leads me into the subject of the three other mysterious deaths that occurred around that time," the detective said quietly.

Teddie was almost done his final bowl now. He seemed rather unwilling to eat, though…

"More mysterious deaths?" Chie asked, sounding worried. "D-don't tell me more of our, um, future teammates are gonna die? Well, not if I have anything to say about it!" she added, cracking her knuckles over her empty bowl.

"…One of them does die, yes," Naoto said quietly. "The first of the mysterious deaths, which I honestly wouldn't have thought much of if I hadn't been aware of Personas and Shadows, occurred in October. The puzzling thing is, although the death occurred sometime overnight… suggesting that it happened during the Dark Hour… the cause of death was in fact a bullet wound. The death was thus written off as a result of violent crime, a textbook back-alley murder."

Chie grinned. "Well, if it was just some jackass with a handgun, we can handle that! So who was it who died? All we gotta do is be there and not let it happen, right?"

Naoto sighed. "That first victim was Shinjiro Aragaki…"

The eavesdropper continued eating, but his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"…I guess it makes sense that people would think he'd get caught up in something shady," Yosuke noted sagely. "You said he didn't come to school, right? I guess he got written off as a drop-out or a gang member like Kanji used to be."

Kanji grunted uncomfortably. "…Well, it's like Chie says. We just gotta be there and stop it from happening. No sweat."

"That's assuming we don't get caught off-guard," Naoto said quietly. "Listen, there's one thing we can't do in this situation, and that's act rashly with what knowledge we have. We have very little of the actual, complete picture. It'd be one thing if we had the whole story, but even the Kirijo-san of our own time told me very little about what happened on Port Island this year. It's one thing if we act to make things better, but we need to be careful not to trip up and make matters more complicated."

Narukami nodded. "If that cult business is any indication, the fate of the world may actually be at stake here. Apathy Syndrome was really widespread by the time it all blew over, so… I want us all to agree on something right now. If we figure out anything, _anything at all_, about what happened — about what's _going _to happen — we talk it over with each other before doing anything about it. Are we cool on this?"

Yosuke gave him the thumbs up. "Good call, Partner."

As the others nodded and gave their own various versions of the same answer, Teddie groaned and pushed away his stack of bowls. "Uuuuhhhhhh…" he moaned. "I dun feel so goooood…"

Yosuke sent a withering look in Teddie's direction. "That's 'cause you ate like seven bowls, you moron. Hey, aren't we supposed to actually, y'know, _save_ some of that money Ikutsuki-san gave us? What part of 'don't spend it all in one place' don't you freakin' get? Gah…"

"Urp…" burped Teddie. "But it's just so… so _beary_ dee-lish…" Teddie cringed, clutching his tummy with both hands. "Owwww…"

Yosuke shook his head, as did most of the others, and looked at Naoto. "Forget him. What about the other deaths?"

The detective sighed, and scratched her head. "This one is a bit more difficult…"she murmured, "because the timing suggests foul play on _someone's _part, possibly one of the victims themselves, or maybe even both of them. But without more information, it's impossible to say. All I know is that around the beginning of December, the C.E.O. of the Kirijo Group… that is to say, Takeharu Kirijo, Mitsuru-san's father, passed away. According to the official reports, his death was caused by sudden illness, but his death occurred at the same time as another important figure's demise, which raised quite a few eyebrows at the time."

"Mitsuru's dad dies?" Narukami said, leaning forward. _I… can't let that happen if it can be avoided…_

Naoto nodded. "Yes. But at about the same time, the chairman of the board at Gekkoukan High — Shuji Ikutsuki — fell to his death from the top of the school observatory…"

"Shuji… Ikutsuki?!" Yukiko squeaked. "Wait, not the same Ikutsuki-san we met last night!"

The Investigation Team expressed their surprise in a variety of ways; with exception to Naoto and Narukami, these ways were quite noisy, drawing the eyes of virtually everyone in the restaurant. Naoto quickly hushed the team while Narukami muttered an apology to one very disgruntled cook.

The gruff-looking teen in the beanie glared openly at the Investigation Team now, frowning in a confused sort of way. Kanji caught his eye and glared back. "What're _you_ looking at, eh?!"

"…Not much," grunted the teen irritably. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet, and put a few bills on the table. "I'm done. Never mind change," he said as he slid off his stool and sauntered away, hands in the pockets of his coat. He walked slightly hunched over, Narukami noted, as if he were physically trying to withdraw from the rest of the world.

Then, he was gone. Narukami heard Kanji mutter something profane under his breath, but the group didn't give the beanie-wearing teen another second's thought after that. There was a more important issue on their minds.

"So, about Ikutsuki-san…" Yosuke prompted uncomfortably. Narukami empathized with what Yosuke was probably feeling: it was one thing to hear about the imminent deaths of people you'd never met, and quite another to hear that someone you were acquainted with was destined to die.

Naoto collected herself and said in her usual professional tones, "Yes, Ikutsuki-san… he apparently fell from the observatory while stargazing late at night: a tragic accident, if the reports were to be believed. The timing was suspicious, but there was nothing else to suggest foul play was involved when I first heard of it. That said, knowing what we know now, particularly about what the school becomes late at night…"

The rest of the team nodded in grim understanding: Ikutsuki's death could only be connected to Tartarus. But the circumstances surrounding it, and how it might tie in with Takeharu Kirijo's death…

"…We need to keep an eye on anything to do with either of them," Narukami decided. "For now that's the best we can do. If it turns out one or both of them is up to no good, then we can stop them before it goes too far. If they both turn out to be victims of something else, then we can stop _that _before it goes too far."

"Yeah," Chie agreed. "It's gonna work a bit differently than usual, but at the end of the day, it's what we usually do, isn't it? Gather information, fight Shadows, save lives. We can do it this time, 'cause we've done it all before."

Yukiko smiled. "Well, this time it's a bit more complicated than just storming a labyrinth and fighting a giant monster at the end of it all, but I think Chie's right. If we keep our cool and use every bit of information we can find, it shouldn't be too difficult to save whoever needs saving and stop whatever's causing all of this. After all, since the world didn't end, S.E.E.S. was able to win even without our help, right?"

Kanji nodded. "Yeah, they don't need us. They'll just be twice as badass as they would've been now that they got us on their side."

Narukami smiled at his friends' enthusiasm (Teddie was only grinning half-heartedly due to his stomach-ache), but said evenly, "Let's just make sure not to go overboard. And like I said, we talk it over before acting on any of this foresight. We need to play this carefully. Just by being here, we might have changed things up in a pretty big way…"

The others all voiced their agreement, taking care to keep their voices down this time, and then Yukiko voiced the question they'd all wondered about at some point over the past few hours:

"So, speaking of foresight… what about Labrys? I mean, we can't just leave her wherever she is right now, can we?"

The Investigation Team suddenly became quite sober; even Teddie seemed to forget his tummy-related antics in favor of focusing on their most recent friend, the Anti-Shadow robot they had rescued from the TV World during Golden Week. They all knew that at this point in time, Labrys was inactive, stashed away in some Kirijo Group cargo-storage facility. They also knew what the Kirijo Group had done to her back in the day…

Naoto shifted uncomfortably. "While investigating the Kirijo Group for possible leads on the culprit behind the P-1 Grand Prix incident," the detective said, "I believe I may have determined the location from which Labrys was being transported when she was stolen. But I didn't have a chance to follow up, and…"

"Well, that settles it, doesn't it?" Yukiko said firmly. Her eyes were blazing with a fiery passion that Narukami rarely saw in the normally soft-spoken girl, but always found mesmerizing when he did. "We can't just leave her stuffed in a box in some — in some warehouse! We have to get her out! If we do — maybe she won't even have to go through that mess in the TV World! Think about it! If we can prevent that from happening —"

Teddie was nodding fervently along with Yukiko, but then Chie blurted out, "B-but won't that prevent us from having met her in the first place?" and Teddie did a massive double-take, his jaw dropping.

"…You mean we won't've met Labby-chan at all?" he mumbled, looking suddenly reluctant.

Narukami leaned forward on his elbows, adopting a serious posture. "It's possible. We don't really know how any of our actions might affect future events, especially if they relate directly to our own experiences. If we intervene and try to help Labrys _now_, it's possible we might erase our reason for knowing about her in the first place… a classic time paradox situation, in other words."

Naoto sighed. "Yes, I was going to mention that. It's a question I'd rather find an answer for before we do anything… big. It isn't just about meeting Labrys, either. If not for that incident, we may never have encountered the Shadow Operatives or that strange being who orchestrated the event in the first place, and we might not have known about S.E.E.S. to begin with…"

Kanji, rubbing at his blond hair in aggravation, muttered something about time-travel making his brain hurt. The others now looked conflicted: Yukiko and Teddie in particular, who Narukami understood had taken a real shine to Labrys in the short time they'd had to get to know each other, seemed lost in their own confused thoughts. Narukami himself wasn't sure what to do…

"Let's just set that aside for now," Narukami said reasonably. "Labrys is safe where she is for the moment, and will be for another few years or so. There's no rush. We should take some time to think about it before we make a decision."

The others agreed, though they didn't seem particularly happy that the question was being left unanswered for now. Perhaps, Narukami hoped, they would learn enough about this time-travel problem that they could make an educated choice later on.

"That just leaves one matter to be discussed," said Naoto in a subdued voice. "The question of what brought us here, and how we can get back to our own time."

"You mean apart from waiting three years?" Kanji said gruffly. "Let's face it, dudes. We're stuck. We don't know how it happened, but unless someone invents a goddamn time machine, we're not gonna be moving through time any way but the normal way. It sucks, but…"

It was rare for Kanji to be the first to answer a question, and even rarer for him to be insightful, but there it was. The Investigation Team looked from one to another and then Yosuke said, "Yeah… you might be right about that, Kanji. Well, it could be worse. We coulda landed in the distant past or far future… never seen our families again _ever_. Compared to that, eh, three years don't sound so bad."

Everyone looked uncomfortable with the prospect except Teddie, but Yukiko and Chie visibly paled at the thought. "W-when you put it that way…" Chie laughed nervously.

"Y-yeah, we got off lucky," Yukiko agreed.

Everyone seemed to share that sentiment, although Narukami knew that just about everyone Teddie was attached to apart from Labrys happened to be sitting at the ramen bar with him. Teddie, as it happens, was currently uncomfortable for another reason.

"Oooooooooh," moaned the humanoid Shadow, clutching his midriff again with both arms. "My t-t-t-tummy hurts…"

"…Dude," Yosuke sighed. "You had _better_ hit a public restroom on the way back to the dorm. 'Cause I swear, you stink up the dorm bathrooms and I'm gonna slap you upside the skull with a golf club."

"Yosuke, don't be mean…" whined Teddie. "Urp…!"

Teddie suddenly jumped up and ran for the bathroom. Just before the door swung completely shut, they heard a loud retching sound. The girls all curled their noses in disgust. Narukami stared deadpan in the direction Teddie had gone, while Kanji just shrugged and turned back to the bar.

Yosuke's palm met his face and he muttered, "What a tragic waste of good ramen..."

* * *

**Author's Note:** And there we have it, the Investigation Team's first official meet-up in the year 2009. As those of you familiar with _Persona 3_ are aware, they've already slipped up in a rather big way… but we'll see what comes of that when it shows up, yes? Thanks for reading, and thank you all for all of these awesome reviews you've been leaving me! It really gets me fired up to write this story. And don't mistake my earlier comment about liking the longer, more in-depth reviews more: I appreciate all of them, even the quickies. You guys are the reason I can even find the energy to bludgeon my way through this pesky writer's block.

Not sure when the next chapter'll come — I'm not one hundred percent on how the next stage of the story should go, to be honest — but it might have to wait until after I've played through _Persona 4 Golden _myself. While I have the basic gist of it, nothing beats a complete and thorough playthrough when it comes to accuracy.

I might also take a bit of time off from this story to actually complete _Persona_ and _Persona 2: Innocent Sin_ on the PSP for the same reason…


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